


Convergent

by SparksSeer



Series: Convergence [1]
Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fear, Fighting, Initiation, Love, No war yet, Sarcasm, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strong Language, candor, dauntless, erudite, fear simulation, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-03-10 00:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 72,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3269864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparksSeer/pseuds/SparksSeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas transferred from Candor to Dauntless and just wants to pass initiation. She hasn't quite left all of her Candor behaviour behind and a certain Dauntless leader shows interest in her person.</p><p>(Takes place a year after Tris's initiation, the war hasn't happened yet)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: Thank you for reading!
> 
> This is a first in many ways: It's my first Divergent fic, the first time I developed an OC and the first time I write in a first person POV.  
> It's also the first time that I write a multichapter fic and update it while I'm still writing. I will do my best to update it as often as I can!
> 
> Warning!!! There will be mentions and descriptions of bruises/injuries/fighting etc. similar to what is described in the books. If something needs an addtional warning, I will put that in the notes at the beginning of those chapters.

I jerk awake and sit up. I look around in the dormitory, but everyone else is still asleep. I don’t find the reason why I am awake. It must be in the middle of the night. It’s the third night I spend in Dauntless, in a room with nine other initiates. It doesn’t really bother me, only that one of them snores. Not even now I can have some quiet time _. Great._ I lie back down and pull the sheets up to my nose and roll over on my side, hoping that I fall asleep again. But after what feels like an hour of tossing and turning, it’s clear that it’s no use. A glance on my watch tells me that it’s only a little after half past five. I get up and put on my trousers and a shirt, but I don’t put on my boots until I am in the hallway.

It takes me a while to find the right way to the training room and I had muttered more than a few swearwords whenever I tripped on the uneven, dark corridors. As I hoped, the training room is empty. Although it’s quite dark, I can still see the punching backs hanging from the ceiling. I stand in front of one and try to remember, what Four had taught us the last two days in training. I position my arms and bend my knees. _Use your whole body_. I breathe in a throw my first punch. I hiss unintentionally and try to ignore the pain as I continue punching the bag. It moves slightly, but not nearly as much as Mia’s yesterday. I huff and feel anger building in me. It was Mia, who had left the bruise on my side, Mia, who can’t stop bragging about how much she had read and learned about different fighting techniques back in Erudite. Mia, who on top of all, actually is a good fighter. What kind of name is Mia anyway? Definitely not a Dauntless name.

 _Get it together, Cas_ , I tell myself. The next time I throw a punch, the bag swings a bit more from the impact. I grin. The next time I’ll fight Mia, she’ll be the one who is out cold. I continue throwing the punches, ignoring the constant pain on my side and my chest. When I start feeling exhausted, I stop and bend forward to catch my breath. It’s almost six now. I hadn’t noticed how long I punched that stupid bag and only now see that my knuckles are red and split open. Hopefully, the other initiate will think it’s still from yesterday’s training. If I return now, I think, I still have time to take a shower before everyone else gets up and notices that I have been up and gone. After all, it’s none of their business how I plan to pass initiation.

I am half way through the training room, when I notice someone standing at the closed door. I didn’t hear anyone enter the room and I am surprised to see that it’s one of the Dauntless leaders, the same, that made a snarky comment when I was one of the last two initiates who had yet to jump down the roof. I can’t stand him. He has _that_ kind of attitude.

“You shouldn’t be here, initiate.”

“But I still am. May I?” I snap and gesture to the door, that he blocks. I am annoyed. But Eric doesn’t move. Instead, he frowns. “What? I’d like to take a shower before breakfast.”

“You’re improving.” He says after staring at me for what feels like … ten minutes. I stand opposite of him with crossed arms and hold his gaze.

“Well, that was the point of coming here.”

“Never short a comeback.” Eric smirks and steps back from the door. “Just be careful, initiate.”

“Don’t waste your time worrying about me, _instructor_.” I say when I walk away. Eric doesn’t reply and I don’t care. He wants to intimidate me? Then he certainly doesn’t know me.

When I arrive at the dormitory, everyone is still sleeping and I take a shower. The warm water feels good on my sore muscles and I start to relax and forget about my encounter with Eric. My bruise from the fight the day before had turned into a dark shade of purple and hurts when I put too much pressure on it. My knuckles burn when the soap touches the open cuts and I wince. _Get over it. You’re Dauntless now!_

I leave the bathroom a few minutes later, with my hair still wet. I see that the other initiates are slowly getting up as well and I see Mia staring at me.

“You were up early, _Cassandra_.”

“You are so smart, Mia, I envy you.” I pretend to gasp in surprise and ignore my anger about her calling me by my full name.

“What were you doing?”

“Let me think. Oh, I have wet hair. Guess I must have taken a shower.” I hear a guy trying to cover up his laugh with a coughing fit and can’t suppress a grin. I grab my jacket and turn my back to Mia. On my way out of the room a Candor boy grins at me and lifts his arm and high-fives me. I don’t even remember his name, but I grin back at him and make my way to the cafeteria with a slightly improved mood. I get some food (and large piece of chocolate cake) and find a still empty table.

I know that I haven’t exactly tried to find any friends within the initiates. If anything I threw them off with my honest opinions and sarcastic comments. Not even the other Candor transfers have shown much interest in my person. Not until this morning, I guess. But to be honest, I don’t even remember them from school. As much as I care at the moment, I just want to make it through initiation and then find some people who actually have some sense in their brains.

I look up when I notice that someone sits down at the other end of the table. It’s Four and some girl. She doesn’t look a lot older than I am and is rather small, compared to my 5’9 ft. They are talking and it’s clear that they are more than close friends when the girl kisses Four on the cheek and he laughs. Ugh, _lovebirds._

I don’t want to look at it and try to ignore their chatter as I start eating my cake. The room fills and I watch as the Candor from earlier and his friend Alec, also a Candor, get food and make their way to my table.

“Hey Cas! Mind if we join you?”

“I am not gonna stop you.” I say and continue eating.

“That’s so generous of you.” The boy without a name sits down next to me. Alec takes the seat across from me.

“Oh, I know. Hope you appreciate it.”

Alec laughs. “We sure do. Jay and I also appreciate you snapping at Mia.” So Candor guy had a name. I think I remember a James transferring to Dauntless at the Choosing Ceremony. Must be him then.

“That was awesome! Her face was priceless!”

I grin, too, now. “I was just giving the nose the answers she had sought.”

“I don’t even understand what her problem is with everyone.” Alec says.

“Everyone but Charles. Have you seen them snogging during dinner last night?”

“Seriously?” I ask surprised. I haven’t noticed anything like that, but then again, I haven’t really paid much attention to the other initiates and what they were doing when they were not fighting each other in training.

“Were you blind? They even got some _looks_ from the Dauntless members.”

“No, I was out cold and still in the infirmary, thanks to Mia.” I state grimly.

“They are basically glued by the hip.”

“And some other places…”

“You mean like you two?” I grin at them. As a response Jay blows a kiss towards Alec, who giggles sheepishly.

“Exactly.” They say in unision.

“Charming.” I laugh and start eating my cake.

 

We are gathered in the training room. Four stands in front of us and waits for us to be silent. I notice a board standing behind him, covered with a piece of fabric.

“What do you think is on that board?” I hear Jay ask Alec quietly, but before he can answer, Four starts talking.

“You all have been here for three days now. You used a gun and you had your first fights. Some of you were more successful than others.” By that his look lingers on me a bit longer than on the others. I hope I am only imagining it. “You will continue your physical training for another two weeks before the first initiates will be leaving us. To give you some motivation we decided to give you an update about how you are doing.” Four pulls the fabric from the board and we can see that the rankings are listed on it. My heart beats faster as I try to find my name on the board.

  1.     Charles
  2.     Jane
  3.     Mia
  4.     Nate
  5.     Jay
  6.     Cedric
  7.     Alec
  8.     Cas
  9.     Dale
  10.   Kendall



I sigh relieved. I am not last. But as I expected I am not one of the best, not after I lost the fight against Mia yesterday. What I didn’t expect was Mia to be only third in ranking. When I glance over to her, I see that I am not the only one who is surprised by that. She is beaten by her boyfriend and a Candor girl.

“Now, remember, initiates. You are not only ranked for your fights, but your overall performance and improvement. If you are fighting you get points for winning a fight against someone with a higher ranking than your own. You won’t gain points for beating an initiate with a lower ranking. If you lose a fight to someone with a lower ranking you will also lose points.

“This board will be updated daily. It won’t show who will get cut after stage one, since the rankings from the Dauntless born initiates aren’t taken into account yet.” He pauses and the mumbling between the initiates starts. I try to shut them out as I try to think about how I can improve my rank. I might still make it with my current rank, if one of the Dauntless-borns ranks lower than I do. But I know how the chances for that are. Low, to keep it brief.

“Each stage will be counted differently, stage two and three will affect your final score more than stage one. Three of the initiates will be leaving after stage one, the same amount will get cut after the final stage.”

“So fourteen initiates will become members? Wasn’t it ten last year?” Charles asks.

“Do I hear complaints from you? Maybe you want to leave already, initiate.” Four glares at him. “Be careful when you open your mouth. Understood?”

Charles fails to hold eye contact and looks down when he whispers an answer. “Yes.”

Four takes a moment to look at us before he speaks again. “You will continue fighting with each other this afternoon. You’ll learn some new techniques after lunch and I expect you to use them in the fights. And now, everyone grab a gun. From what I saw up to now, your aim is in need of improvement.”

He was right. Most of us barely hit the outer circle of the target. Not even Mia. I think my biggest achievement was that I managed to scratch the target. I know that I definitely don’t want to get on his bad side and hurry to be the first one to grab a gun. We follow Four to the targets and stand in one line, a couple feet away from the targets.

“Go! The gun doesn’t start shooting by itself.”

I position myself and try to remember what Four had taught us. I lift the gun with both my hands and aim. I shake slightly and shift my feet, trying to find the best posture. I take a deep breath and fire.

“You missed.” A familiar voice says into my ear. I didn’t even notice that Eric had stepped behind me or even entered the room. He must have joined us when Four held his little speech.

“I hadn’t noticed. Thank you for telling me.” Before he can say anything else, I fire two times. This time, at least one of the bullets hits the target, barely, but it’s something. Suddenly I feel Eric hands on my shoulders as he pushes them down and in the right position.

“You’re tense. Relax. Your legs are too far apart. Stand straight.” He presses his had between my shoulder blades and pushes me in straighter position. “Focus on the target, don’t waste too much time aiming. Breathe out when you fire.” I follow his instructions and fire. I miss the target.

Eric snorts. “Now, stop shaking. You’re holding a gun.” And with that he leaves me and checks on the other initiates.

“What was that about?” Jay asks next to me. I just sigh and shake my head. I don’t know either, especially after I snapped at him this morning. I watch him as he steps next to Kendall and watches her miss the target several times.

“That’s pathetic, initiate.” I can hear him snarl. But instead of helping her like he did with me, he _just stands there_. Even from where I stand I can see how intimidated Kendall is. When she fires again (and misses), Eric leaves her. He catches me watching him.

“Did I tell you to stop shooting?” I stare at him, before I return to my position, shoot, and hit the middle circle of the target. Then I hit the inner circle. I notice that I stopped shaking and glance over to Eric, who seems to be slightly impressed as he nods in my direction. I am indeed improving. I shoot again, and miss the target. _Or not_ , I think to myself and sigh. At least Eric seems to not have seen _that_ , as he is talking to Four and apparently has lost interest in me. I reload my gun and keep practicing.

 

My shoulders and my arms hurt when I grab a tray with lunch and sit down with Jay and Alec.

“Are you going to explain, why you of all initiates got the most attention from Eric?”

“If by attention, you mean picking on me, Alec, I can honestly say I have no idea.”

“By attention I mean you being the only one he had actually given some helpful tips, Cas.” Alec looks at me expectantly.

“I was one of the few who still barely ever hits the target, Alec. I won’t be the one complaining about getting tips.”

“No, but have you actually seen how he stares at you?” Jay asks and I groan. I don’t even care about what Eric wants from me. If he wants help me, _fine._ Getting tips from a leader can’t really be a bad thing, not if I actually want a job that is something different than guarding the fence.

“And how exactly would that be, huh?” And for the rest of our lunch break, Jay and Alec keep making ridiculous faces and try to convince me, that _that_ was actually how Eric was looking at me. I could have made worse friends, I think and laugh at the grimace Alec pulls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading! English is not my native language and I would really appreciate any comments :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is: the next chapter! Enjoy :)

I have to fight against Cedric. He is one or two inches smaller than I am, but from what I saw yesterday and according to the rankings, he has more fighting skills than I do. I take another look at the board. The first fight is between Kendall and Alec. It’s my turn right after that. A knot forms in my stomach as I remember how I woke up in the infirmary yesterday. I really don’t want to experience that again, especially not in connection to losing a fight.

Maybe Eric was right when he said that I was improving. I could hope, but I want to pass initiation and just hoping that I will win this fight won’t do any good. I need a strategy, a plan to win and not get cut after stage one.

I look over to Cedric. Just like Mia, he transferred from Erudite, so he’s smart. I need to use my height as an advantage, it’s probably the only one I have. Maybe I can… no. I have no idea what to do. Did Four say anything about using your height as an advantage? At least I don’t remember. All we learned today were some basic kicks. Alec and Kendall are called to fight. Maybe I can learn something from that.

I glance over to Eric, who gives the sign to start fighting. I don’t want him to catch me staring at him, so I turn away and focus on the fight. Just then Alec throws the first punch and hits Kendall hard in her stomach. Her defence is weak. She is too slow to block it and stumbles a few feet backwards. Alec walks towards her and punches again. He hits her jaw and Kendall lets out a whimper. Alec’s face is stern. Kendall doesn’t make an attempt to fight back, she doesn’t even hold up her guard.

“Come on, I don’t have all day!” Eric shouts. This seems to waken Kendall up a bit and she tries to kick Alec in his side. She isn’t fast enough –again- and the next thing I see is Kendall lying on the floor with Alec above her, kicking her. I look away. She is defenceless and on the floor. She doesn’t fight back. Finally, Four ends the fight. The only thing I learned from this fight is to fight back. I figured that out already.

“Alec, bring her to the infirmary and let them check if she’s alright.” Four orders and Alec helps Kendall up. “Cedric and Cas, you’re next.”

This is it then. Win or lose. I stand across from Cedric and position my arms like we learned in training.

“And now I want to see some actual fighting! Dauntless doesn’t need cowards who can’t fight back!” Eric says to us. I glare at him as rage fills me. I will not be called a coward. Especially not by him. I’ve had enough of that when I was the last one to jump down that roof. But now I am in Dauntless and I’ll fight and I want to win. And with that something like a plan forms in my head.

Four signals us to start. Cedric and I circle each other. Then he moves and hits me in my abdomen. I was prepared for that, but I notice that the impact wasn’t nearly as strong as I expected. He is skilled, but weak. Again, Cedric lurches forward, but this time I manage to block him and hit his ears with my flat hands, letting my defence down for just a moment. It’s a risk, but he stumbles a step backwards and I see his eyes shifting around. Good. He seems dizzy and I punch him in his jaw. My hand stings and I wince. Cedric kicks my side and I bend forward in pain. _You can’t let him win, Cas. Get it together!_ I internally scream at myself. He knees me in my stomach over and over again until I manage to twist out of his grip. As fast as I can I take the moment when his guard is down and aim for his throat. He coughs but immediately pushes me backwards with his hands and I fall down. My head hits the floor hard and my vision goes black for a moment. _Don’t pass out. Focus_. He kneels above me and hits my jaw again. I shift under his weigh. _Think, Cas! What is his weakness?_ I taste blood on my tongue as he hits me again and I struggle to free myself from his grip.

“You’re about done there, initiates?” I hear Eric asks, almost bored _._

_No_ , I think. _I am not done_. Because Cedric has a weak spot. I knee him hard in his crotch and I can’t supress a smirk when I hear him howl in pain. His grip loosens just enough and I push him from me and quickly stand up. I kick him in his side, over and over again until I hear Four. Cedric doesn’t make an attempt to stand up.

“That’s enough. You won, Cas. Now help him up.” I nod and try to catch my breath. I catch Eric looking at me. When our eyes meet, he gives me a small nod. I look away. This was not about him or Cedric. This is about me and me passing initiation. _But it was also to impress him_ , a voice whispers in my head. I am no coward.

When I bend over and try to help Cedric up, the room suddenly starts moving around me and rather than helping him up, I hold onto Cedric to not stumble and fall over. Just a moment later, I feel two hands on my arms and see Jay standing next to me. He holds me, while Charles comes up and helps Cedric. The room is shifting around me.

“You need medical attention, Cas. I’ll bring you to the infirmary.” I try to nod, but now that I won, all the adrenaline is gone and leaves my head throbbing with pain.

“You won’t.” Eric says. “You are next to fight, so I’ll take her.” I can see Jay looking at me, then at Eric. Jay nods and an unwell feeling forms in my stomach. I don’t want to be alone with Eric, especially not when I actually do need help and probably am not in the condition to defend myself physically. Eric still is a leader and I did snap at him this morning, which, in retrospective, probably wasn’t my wisest decision. I gulp when Eric puts one arm around my waist to steady me as he guides me out of the training room. Charles and Cedric are already gone and I feel alone and vulnerable next to him. My head pounds and I still taste the blood in my mouth, and I would sway if it wasn’t for Eric’s firm grip. I feel the warmth of his body through my thin shirt and although I never wanted to be that close to him, I am thankful that I don’t have to make my way through the Dauntless compound on my own in this condition. I really don’t want to end up as a pile of flesh and blood on the floor of the pit. My thoughts are blurred and _I hate it_.

“I told you.” Eric says as soon as we left the training room behind.

“Told me what?”

“You improved.”

“Well, thank you?” I don’t know how to response to that.

“You still have a lot to work on though. You could have won this fight a lot faster. Instead you let yourself beat up so badly that I need to take you to the infirmary.”

Of course, he couldn’t just leave it. “Well, I didn’t ask you to help me.” I snap at him.

“Yet you need me.”

“I don’t.” I lie.

“The thing is, Cas,” He pauses and I notice, that this is probably the first time he ever said my name. “That I can’t afford a dead initiate in the chasm.”

“That’s sad to hear, Eric.” I reply weakly. I feel dizzy.

“It is, isn’t it?” He says quietly and I fear that I have gone too far once again. But he doesn’t say anything else until we reach the hospital. He doesn’t push me off a ledge and I figure that he probably really can’t afford a dead initiate.

When we enter, I can see Cedric lying on one of the beds, assuring the woman that he was fine and just needed some ice. Alec comes towards us and grins at me.

“Good work, Cas.”

“So did you.” I crack a smile. “See you later.”

The same woman that already took care of me the day before sees me and Eric and puts down her paperwork, before she approaches us. She has short, blonde hair with some purple streaks in it. Her ears are pierced with too many rings than I care to count.

“Seriously, Eric, what are you doing with your initiates all the time? She’s the fourth one already today!”

Eric laughs. “At least, this time she won, Ace.”

“She doesn’t look like she won, though.”

“That’s what I told her.”

I scream internally. There is no need to make fun of me when I am standing right next to them. “You _do_ realize that I am right here, right? If it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you, I’d like at least some pain killers.”

They both look at me for a moment before Ace turns back to Eric. “I like this one.” I think I can almost see a smile on Eric’s lips. “Bring her over here, Eric.”

 

I leave two hours later drugged with some painkillers and after I had a nice nap in one of those comfy hospital beds. Apparently, exhaustion and being beaten up don’t go well together and leaves you dizzy - especially, if you just got knocked out the day before. I hope that this was at least worth it and helps my rank. After all, I did beat Cedric.

I take a look at my watch. It’s past six already, so training is over. I can do whatever I want now, but ultimately my growling stomach leads me to the dining hall. A couple of initiates are sitting around one table and I grab a piece of chocolate cake before I sit down next to Jay.

“Hey, Cas!” Alec greets me. “You feeling better?”

I smile. “Yeah, no worries. Just some more bruises.” I start eating the cake.

“So… Eric accompanied you.” I look up and see Jane watching me. We haven’t really talked before.

“Yeah…”

“Isn’t he kinda intimidating?” She asks further. “I mean, did you see the look on his face when Kendall lost her fight? Weren’t you scared?” She frowns.

“Well, I guess so.” I reply and shrug.

“I wouldn’t want to upset him, would you?”

“Hmmm…” I am glad that my mouth is full with cake, so that I have a legit excuse not to answer. Would I want to turn Eric against me? I guess it’s already too late to ask myself that question. No one snaps at Eric, not unless you actually want to be on the bad side of a leader. Yet, here I am. I shake my head and try not to smirk. Ace –who I guess one of Eric’s friends- said she liked me, so maybe it isn’t that bad to stand up to Eric.

“Cas?” Alec asks after a while.

“Hm, what?” I look up and see Alec, Jay, Nate and Jane watching me.

“Did you upset Eric?”

“I wouldn’t say _upset_ …” I say slowly. “I just said what was on my mind.”

“Do you have a death wish?”

“Not at all, but then again Eric said to me that couldn’t push me into the chasm anyway.” The others are gaping at me. “It wouldn’t look good.” I add as casually as I could.

“I can’t believe you! He really said that?” Jay looks impressed.

“Basically, yeah.”

“I would have loved to see that!” Of course he would. I smirk.

“Yeah, too bad.” Nate jumps in.

“I am really sorry guys.” I laugh. “Next time, I’ll make sure you’re around.”

“Next time? _Are you insane_?” Jane looks at me with wide eyes. I just shrug and laugh. I’m not letting myself get bullied by some leader, only because other people can keep their mouth shut while I prefer to stand up to Eric. His attitude is annoying.

 

“You know what we should do? Get tattoos!”

“Count me in!” Jay high fives Alec and they stand up. “You’re coming, Cas?”

“You can bet on it!”

“Jane? Nate?” Alec asks them, but only Nate stands up and joins us. Jane shakes her head. I can see by her posture, that she feels uncomfortable. I ignore it. “Alright, let’s go.”

We talk about some unimportant stuff and make some jokes on our way to the tattoo parlour and I try to think about what I want. Before I joined Dauntless, I never really thought about tattoos because we obviously didn’t have a chance to get one in Candor, but now that I chose Dauntless, I want to look dauntless. Maybe I should get piercing, too.

We turn around a corner and cross the Pit as Mia crosses our way. She seems furious, to say the least. She doesn’t even look at us and hastily walks past us.

“What was that about?” I frown.

“Oh, she lost her fight against Jane earlier.” Nate explains.

Jay laughs and adds: “Yeah, and she and Charles had an argument right after it, when he wanted to help her get up.”

“She refused any help. Even Four’s.”

“It was hilarious!”

“Poor Mia.” I say sarcastically. “She deserves so much better.” We all laugh and they tell me about the rest of training. Jay won his fight against Dale, and Nate lost his fight against Charles, but he wasn’t beaten up too badly. I don’t know how Alec feels about winning against Kendall, but he doesn’t pride himself on it. I probably wouldn’t either, but winning is better than losing, if you want to pass initiation.

 

The tattoo parlour is relatively crowed and we make our way through to the books with the examples. We skip through the pages and show each other cool images. Everyone finds something after a couple of minutes, that they want to get and wait for an artist to have time for them. It’s not until I reach a page with various Dauntless symbols, that I also know what I want. I am lucky and one of the artists just finished Nate’s tattoo.

“I am Miles.” He introduces himself when I sit down on the chair.

“Cas.” I say.

“Yeah, I know.” Miles smirks and gets his materials.

“How do you know me?”

“Where do you want to get your tattoo?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Neither did you answer mine.” I glare at him. “So?” He asks then. “I can’t give you a tattoo if you don’t tell me where you want it.”

I debate my chances of winning this argument. If I don’t give in, I won’t get the tattoo I want. “Fine.” I grumble and show him where I want it.

When he is done and explained me how to treat it, he asks: “Anything else I can do for you, _Cas_?”

“Who told you who I am?”

“Someone.”

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Who is ‘someone’?”

“A person I know.” He shrugs. “Anything else?”

“Do you do piercings?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I would appreciate some comments about what you think about this :) I hope that the next chapter will be up in a few days!
> 
> English is not my native language and I don't have a beta - sorry for any mistakes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! A chapter that is a bit longer (yay!).
> 
> Enjoy another encounter with a certain leader and a trip to the fence :)

Apparently, I am an early riser now. It’s five o’clock in the morning and - again - I am the only initiate awake in the dormitory. I went to bed early the night before, hoping that I would get a full nine hours rest before training. I stare at the ceiling and sigh. My muscles are sore and if I move the wrong way, my whole body hurts. I hear nothing but nine people breathing – one of them snoring. The sound seems to come from a few beds next to me… It’s probably Nate or Dale then. I am wide awake.

I think about going to the training room again. A little more practice definitely won’t hurt. But didn’t Eric say that I wasn’t supposed to be there yesterday? But no one ever said that it’s forbidden for initiates to go to the training room outside of training, not even Four mentioned something like that. Maybe Eric was just saying it to irritate me. I think about it. He probably really just said it because he didn’t think anyone of the initiates would train so early in the morning.

I know that I should probably rather rest as much as I can, than already getting up, but I am restless, and I hate not having to do anything. And maybe, _just maybe_ , I am a little curious about whether Eric has a habit of going to the training room so early in the morning. I get up, dress and swallow one of the painkillers I got in the infirmary yesterday. Then I quietly make my way through the compound.

I look around the training room, but just like the day before, it’s empty. I look over to the targets for the shooting practices, but I know I can’t train with a gun as they are locked away. I don’t want to bring attention to my doings here anyways. That leaves practising my punches and kicks.

“You seem to be an ambitious initiate.” Eric remarks from across the room a few minutes after I started my exercises _. So he does come here early on a regular basis_. I smile to myself, but don’t turn around. I kick the punching bag again, before I answer him.

“You could say that.” I see him coming closer to where I stand and kick.

“Haven’t seen an initiate training that early since I was an initiate.”

“You better get used to it then.” I reply breathlessly as I continue. He doesn’t answer, but I know he is watching me. _Closely_. Minutes pass and I feel uncomfortable with him just standing a few feet next to me while I try to make the punching bad swing. The silence I am treated with is almost nerve-wracking.

“Are you trying to achieve anything with just standing there and staring at me?” I ask under my breath. “Don’t you have some Dauntless leader things to do or something?”

He huffs and smirks when I turn towards him. “Actually, no, I don’t.”

“So what are you doing here then?”

“Training.”

“I don’t recall a training discipline that requires only standing and staring.”

He frowns at me. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful, initiate?”

“You certainly did. Yet you never said what to be careful about, Eric.” I counter.

He crosses his arm in front of his chest and _just looks at me_. Interesting, I think. It’s almost as if he is speechless-

“You risk a lot.”

“Ah, but wouldn’t it be cowardly not to?”

He sneers at me. “Just … remember who you’re talking to.”

“That’s hard to forget, Eric.” I respond.

“Good.” He turns around and goes to another punching bag a couple feet away from me. Just before he starts training, he turns his head in my direction again. “Like the new look.” He gives me a small nod and smirks, before turning around again. The bag starts swinging from his hard punches.

I stare at him. Did Eric just compliment me? Why would he do that? He hates me. Right? He hates me guts and he would have thrown me down the chasm if he could. That is a fact. Another fact is, that the Dauntless flames on my right wrist and the piercing in my left eyebrow are hardly a new look. It surprises me that he even noticed that at all.

Did he even mean it? He’s an asshole and a leader and I am pretty sure he isn’t even allowed to _be_ with an initiate. _Why are you even thinking about this, Cas?_ _You know how he is._ He probably just said to irritate me. And it fucking works.

I leave the training room about half an hour later, still angry about Eric. He didn’t say anything else to me, he didn’t even acknowledge my existence any further and just went on with his training. I glance at him one more time, before I go through the door and catch him looking at me. He scowls at me. Fantastic. I groan and turn back around just to promptly bump into someone.

“Sorry.” I say sharply and try to get through the door. Suddenly, I feel a hard grip on my arm and I actually look at the person that I bumped into. It’s Four. How many instructors and leaders are left that I could encounter today?

“Careful, initiate.”

“I said I am sorry. I didn’t see you.”

He nods. “What were you doing here?”

“I practiced.” My voice still sounds strained.

His mouth twitches and I can almost see a smile. “Good.” He looks at me for a moment. “You’re alright?”

“Yeah. Just not my morning.” I try to overplay my anger about Eric, but I know that I am failing. I shrug. I want to appear casual.

He looks at me for another few moments. “Okay.” And by that he let’s go of me and leaves me behind. I go through the door and lean against a wall. I need a moment to calm down and besides, I don’t really want to go back to the other just now. I don’t want to see me on edge like this. They’d only ask question that I don’t want to answer. I calm my breathing and think of anything but what just happened. Only when I am sure that my face looks as bored and neutral as always, I take one last deep breath and want to go back to take a shower when I hear Four start talking.

“What were you doing with her?” I hear him ask Eric in the training room. I stop where I am standing and listen.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” Even from where I listen to them he sounds bored and can almost imagine his expression, his eyes glaring, but the rest of his face looking stern. Maybe the corners of his mouth are twitching just slightly. It’s a look he gave us more than just once or twice _and I should not be think about how he looks now._

“She’s one of my initiates, so it is my business.”

“Don’t forget who has the authority here.”

“This has nothing to do with your authority, I just don’t want you torturing my initiates again.”

“I would not dare to break your new rules.” Eric says almost too quietly for me to hear, sending me shivers down my spine. I can’t hear Four’s response to that and decide to leave now before I am caught eavesdropping.

Four made it sound as if Eric has a history of torturing his initiates. I knew that he has been overseeing the transfer’s initiation training for the past years and I did hear whispers about him not being nice at all. I don’t even need other people telling me that, I experienced it more than once now. He does have that reputation and especially the younger members and initiates look up to him with a mixture of respect and terror. And Eric seems to like it that way. I can’t really blame him for it, I admit to myself.

That’s what I like more about Four. Even though he is our instructor and keeps this strong kind of attitude, he still seems like he doesn’t really want to torture us and seems to care about us. He’s probably a nice guy behind his façade. Eric in the contrary, I am not so sure about. I haven’t quite managed to see behind his façade, and it bothers me. I was raised to be able to see behind the way that people behave, and yet I fail.

 

I manage to sneak in the dormitory and bathroom without someone noticing and I am the first one to go to the cafeteria to grab my breakfast. After some time the other initiates come in as well and Jay and Alec sit down at my table. They crack some jokes, but I mostly ignore them. I don’t really feel like talking. I am still thinking about Eric and what he said to me, and later to Four. It has been obvious from the very beginning that Four and Eric aren’t friends, if anything they are colleagues, but only because apparently Four has no say in Eric’s task to overview our training. Why am I even so focused on Eric? I shouldn’t think so much about him and what he means or not means by telling me that he likes my new look. My only focus right now should be the training and how I’ll pass initiation and become an actual faction member instead of becoming factionless. I need to leave my Candor behaviour behind and that I always want to analyse the people around me.

I already made a mistake with letting Jay and Alec being nice to me. If I make friends now, they could easily fail initiation and I’d probably never see them again – or the other way around. And I don’t want either way to happen, I don’t even want to think about it. My plan was to only actually make friends once I have a secure place to be and know, which people I can trust.

But as usually, my ability to not being willing to shut up when it’s the best for me ruined that plan. I guess, that’s what I definitely inherited from my parents, the thing, that I hated most about them, is what I do as well. I am glad that I left them. I wouldn’t want to deal with them right now.

I get snapped out of my thoughts when Jay and Alec tell me that it’s time for training. I am glad for the distraction from my thoughts and go with them. Only when we enter the training room, I remember that training usually means, seeing Eric again sooner or later. I look around, and sigh relieved. Eric isn’t here yet, which means that training will be a bit more relaxed for everyone.

“Today’s focus will be on your fighting skills again. You’ll fight against each other again this afternoon. The pairs will be announced after lunch.” Four proclaims. “Tomorrow we’ll have a field trip to the fence and you will learn about the different job options you’ll have - should you complete initiation. I want everyone by the tracks at eight.”

A field trip… That’s news. It’ll be the first time that we get to leave the compound since we jumped from that roof after the choosing ceremony. It almost sounds as if…

“The trip will take up all morning and since we have some other things to do in the afternoon, there will be no training tomorrow. You are free to do whatever you want, as long as you stay on the compound. I recommend that you still make use of the training room and practice.”

… We have no training tomorrow, which ultimately means no Eric at all tomorrow – if he doesn’t accompany us to the fence, although I am guessing that that’s not important enough for him to supervise.

The rest of the morning runs by without anything unusual happening. Eric doesn’t appear and Four gives me a few tips to improve my kicks. I am now ranked seventh. I am still not one of the best initiates but even Four told me that I am improving a bit. Lunch is uneventful as well and me and a few of the others talk about training. Later, I am told that I am paired with Kendall for the next fight.

She is still ranked last and I doubt that she’ll pass stage one. The chances that I win are high, but unless that I should lose after all, this fight won’t affect my ranking. Eric joins us just before the first fight starts. I know that he is watching me and my stomach clenches. I try my best to ignore him and keep my eyes focused on the fights. Kendall and I are the last to fight and I knock her out after just a few minutes. Eric doesn’t comment and neither does Four. I am glad they don’t and instead carry Kendall to the infirmary with Jay’s help.

 

We are all waiting at the tracks for the train to arrive. I don’t see Eric anywhere, so I was right with my assumption that he had better things to do than a field trip to the fence with a couple initiates. A few moments later the train arrives and we start running. It’s only our second time jumping on a train I realize when I run next to the train and try to grab a handle. Four is the first to jump on and the rest of us follows. I am surprised when I jump and land on my feet without stumbling. I let out a short laugh and Jay takes the opportunity to high-five me. Then a small figure jumps on the train. I thought I was the last one to jump, but then I recognize her.

“Sorry, I’m late. Got held up by Eric again.” She says to Four and smiles apologetic.

“What did he want?”

“Just the usual.” She says when she’s our curious looks. Four notices them as well and doesn’t ask further. “For those of you who don’t know me already, I’m Tris. I am supervising the Dauntless-born initiates, but for today, I’ll be joining you to teach you about the different jobs in Dauntless.”

“What’s your job when you’re not supervising initiation?” Alec asks.

“Leader in training.”

The initiates start mumbling by that revelation. “How did you get that job?”

“I got ranked first at the end of initiation.” She says calmly, yet it’s clear that she’s proud of that – I’d be, too.

“How old are you? You seem quite young.”

“Seventeen, but you will notice that age doesn’t matter in Dauntless.”

“That’s impressive.” I state and I mean it. She’s only a year older than we are and seems to have achieved a lot especially, since it also creates the impression that she is in a relationship with our instructor.

“Is it true that you’re a transfer?” Mia demands to know.

Tris shoots her an angry gaze. “I _was_ a transfer. I am a Dauntless member now.”

“What faction did you transfer from?”

“That hardly matters, does it?” She glares at Mia. It’s quiet in the train car. No one dares to speak again. It seems, that Tris’ declaration that she is a leader in training impresses my fellow initiates more than I thought - additionally to the fact that although she seems rather harmless, she made it clear that she’s not. There obviously was a reason why she got ranked first of her class and everyone knew that. I have the utmost respect for her, considering that that was her final rank. She was, or _is_ , better than the Dauntless-borns. I don’t think I’ll be able to achieve that.

The train slows down after a while and finally stops. One by one we jump off into the high grass and follow Four and Tris to the fence. The fence is long and just a chain-link fence with some barbed wire on the top. Armed Dauntless members walk around on the other side of the fence. There are some trees, though most of them seem dead. We reach a gate and the Dauntless there greet Four and Tris with smiles and nods. They wait for us to be silent. Four nods in Tris’ direction and she starts talking in a loud and clear voice.

“Should you not be ranked high enough at the end of initiation, the chances are high that your future job lies here, outside of the city. Once you are a fence guard there are not many possibilities to advance your position. Your task is to guard the fence and protect the city from what’s out there.”

“But what exactly is out there?” Nate asks. “From what do we need protection?”

“You’ll find that out should you be among those who get to work here.” Four replies. “If it comforts you, many say that it’s not as bad as it seems.”

I still don’t want to end up here. Guarding the city from something that I don’t even know really exists appears senseless to me. I’d rather do something that indeed is for the greater good of our faction. Four and Tris elaborate on the tasks of a fence guard and eventually the other job opportunities a Dauntless member has. There isn’t an awfully lot to choose from. It’s mainly either working in various positions for the leaders such as a leader in training –if one of those spots is even available- or a faction representative or working as a tattoo artist, making weapons, show-fighting and similar jobs.

The idea of being a representative for Dauntless holds my attention. I definitely don’t want to be in a leader position, but working with the other factions would doubtlessly be interesting. I’d see parts of the city that I’ve never been before, such as the headquarters of the Erudite, Abnegation and Amity. The downside to this job is that it requires me to be ranked in the top five at the end of initiation to even be able to choose this job. I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage that, since there are still the Dauntless-born initiates to be taken into account – as well as the second and third stage of initiation.

When they finish explaining the job opportunities, we have to wait for the next train to arrive. Four and Tris talk with some of the guards at the gate, when the gates open for a few Amity farmers and their trucks. I have never been on the other side of the fence since in Candor we never had a reason to be there. I know that often the Abnegation would go to the farms in fall, when it’s time to harvest, but other than that only a few selected members of each faction would go there next to Amity. Maybe, I’ll get that chance, if I become a faction representative. It’s a goal I want to achieve, even if it means that there is the possibility that I have to visit Candor and see my parents again. Or maybe that just is another reason why the job sounds so tempting – to show them that I chose the right faction for myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading. I hope that you liked it and maybe leave your thoughts in the comments?
> 
> English is not my native language and I don't have a beta.
> 
> .... While writing the last two chapter I have come up with a lot of plot ideas, and most importantly the ending. I can't say how long this will be though, so just stick by and subscribe for updates :)
> 
> Also consider checking out my tumblr: we-could-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com for updates on my writing and a lot of Divergent ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!
> 
> A comment would be very much appreciated :)

“You weren’t here yesterday morning.” An all too familiar voice says as soon as I enter the training room. It’s early, and this time I set an alarm to make sure I have enough time for my extra training. I have a goal I want to achieve after all.

“Correct.” I answer simply and go over to one of the punching bags, removing my jacket on the way. I put it down on the floor.

“Why?” Eric asks me.

To be honest, I simply didn’t want to go as I didn’t want to see Eric. If I got the chance not to see him for a whole day, a whole day without his irritating comments, than I would make use of that day. But, of course, I can’t and don’t want to tell him that.

“Because I had all afternoon for my normal training and I was tired.” It’s not really a lie. You learn not to lie and still avoid the whole truth in Candor.

“I see.” Eric nods, but continue to stare at me. I have the feeling that he knows that that’s not the real reason I didn’t come.

“Anything else you want from me?” My voice is taut as I make eye contact with him. His gaze is piercing and I have to pull myself together to not look away.

“You realize that punching and kicking that bag won’t do much to improve your actual fighting skills, right?”

“And what is then?” I know that he is right, I thought about that before, nevertheless I don’t have much choice in what I can train, since shooting is not an option and my only opponent in the morning simply is the punching bag.

“Real fighting.” He states and looks at me expectantly. I frown. “A punching bag doesn’t fight back, you don’t learn how to block hits and you don’t learn how to circumvent the defence of your opponent. All of that is important to know in a fight. You can’t expect to win if you don’t know these things.”

“I already won two fights, in case you’ve forgotten, Eric.” I spit out. I don’t need him to lecture me. He isn’t even my instructor, Four is. He is only there to watch and rank us.

“You call that winning?” He says with a short, teasing laugh.

My voice is trembling when I speak again. “What else do you wanna call it if you knock the other one out in a fight?”

“Winning against Kendall is nothing. She has no skill and no will to fight, let alone to win.”

“I beat Cedric-“

“Yeah, that was luck alone, not your skill. I told you that before.”

“Oh, thank you.” I answer bitterly.

“No need to thank me, Cas.” He sniggers. “I didn’t mean to be mean to you by criticizing you.”

“That’s not working out very well for you, is it?” I cross my arms in front of my chest and raise one eyebrow.

“That’s remains to be seen. I wanted to make a suggestion to you.”

“A suggestion? Really? Do you want me to leave Dauntless before I get cut? That’s not going to happen.”

“No, don’t worry. I offer you my help.”

He catches me by surprise and I take a few moments longer than usually to reply. “Why would I need your help?” Yes, why would he? I am only an initiate that had transferred from Candor and wants to pass initiation. Eric doesn’t help initiates or anyone at all in Dauntless, from what I had heard.

“I think I made that quite clear already. I thought you were listening.”

“Then let me ask another question,” I squint my eyes. “Why would I accept your help?”

“It’s simple. You want to pass initiation. I can make that happen.”

“You seriously want to help _me_? Why?”

“Do you ever stop asking questions?”

“Not unless you answer them.”

“You’re pretty blunt for an initiate that wants to become a Dauntless member.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Do you accept my offer then?”

“Is it just a reason for you to punch me?”

He tilts his head to his right and shrugs. “Guess you’ll find out.” He pauses and frowns at me. “Or not,” he adds then in his cocky voice.

I don’t know what to think about his offer. If he was someone else, who I would know for being genuinely nice and helping others, I probably wouldn’t be this sceptical. But this is Eric. He doesn’t like initiates, and apparently especially not the transfers. He views us as weak and behaves as if we’re just a burden on his time. He knows what his reputation is and makes use of it. Never does he do anything that makes him even remotely likable or seems out of his character. And still, he made me a compliment for whatever reason and offers me his help. I sigh. I really would rather accept Four’s help than Eric’s.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Do you want to be Dauntless?”

I look at him for another moment. “Fine.” I still don’t understand his reasons, but it’s my goal to figure him out. And I want to be one of the top five initiates at the end of training, I want to be able to pick the job I want and Eric training me is my chance to achieve just all of that. What is the worst that can happen? I don’t have much to lose _. Except getting kicked out of Dauntless_. But that can happen whether or not I accept his help, I tell myself.

 

“Punch me.” He instructs once we’re in the arena.

“Punch you?”

“Yes, try and punch me.” He gives me that arrogant look again and I don’t waste another moment and position myself across from him. Oh, he had given me so many reasons to punch him. I smirk at him and throw my first punch at his throat.

He blocks it. The next time I try to hit his side. He evades and my fist touches nothing but air. I groan and try again. I don’t land a single hit, not even when I try to kick him. After about ten minutes, he tells me to stop.

I stand straight and put my hands on my hips. I am frustrated and I know that that’s probably the exact thing that he wanted to achieve.

“So tell me, what’s the difference between hitting me and hitting one of the punching bags?” Eric asks. He’s in instructor mode, serious and for once he doesn’t sound like the arrogant prick he usually is during our training or … when we’re alone.

“I don’t actually get to hit you.” I answer. “You block all my punches.”

“Exactly.” He nods, satisfied with my answer. “Now I’ll try to punch you and you will try to block me.” Eric instructs.

I nod slowly, although I am not so sure if it’s really such a good idea. I don’t know how strong he is exactly and how much of his strength he is going to use against me. I put my arms in position to and find a good posture. He looks at me expectantly and I nod. That’s when he makes his first move. I am not fast enough to move, but his fist only softly touches my stomach. He steps back again and aims the next punch to my side. Again, I am too slow.

We continue for a few minutes and I only manage to block a few of his hits, but not once did he hurt me. I am not sure if I should be surprised or not. We pause again.

“What did you notice now?”

“You got to hit me.”

“Why?”

“My defence is weak.”

“Yes. You’re slow and you’re arms do not completely cover you weak spots. Try to hold them like this.” He takes my arms and moves them until he’s satisfied with my posture. “This way you cover both your throat and most of your stomach. Remember that.”

“Okay.” I nod. Eric steps back and takes the same position. For the next half hour he shows me how to block the different punches and when it’s the best option to just move out of the way. When we’re finished, I feel like I actually learned something from Eric. He is a good trainer and instructor, completely against my expectations. He keeps surprising me.

“Remember to always keep moving,” He says at last. “Get up as soon as you’re on the floor. Never be an easy target to hit.”

“Alright.” I look at him and then add an honest “Thank you.”

For a moment, Eric seems almost stunned. Then he smirks. “My pleasure… I expect you to be here tomorrow morning. Five o’clock.” He says the last part with his usual tone of arrogance. A tone, that definitely left no room for arguments.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there.” I reply sharply.

“And I recommend you don’t tell your friends about it. While it’s not completely illegal to get private training, they could consider it favouritism. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, _initiate_?”

“Certainly not, _instructor_.” I spit out. We are back to our routine of snapping at each other. I turn my back to him and leave for the door. It’s weird how now, I consider it normal to talk to him like that and that I am almost relieved that he’s behaving like his usual self again. It’s almost relaxing. It’s just so _weird_ seeing him like that, serious and willing to help _me_ out of all people. I am almost sure that not many people get to see that side of him. _Well, definitely not the initiates_. I don’t know enough about the Dauntless structure and how the leaders are seen in general by the members. Now that I think about it, I haven’t actually seen Eric much around the compound. I barely see him during the meals in the dining hall and the only people I have seen him interact with besides the initiates and Four, were either the leaders or the one time he brought me to the infirmary and joked around with that woman, Ace. They might be friends, from the way they talked, but I can’t really picture Eric around people who like him. Eric doesn’t seem to be close with a lot of people.

I don’t understand Eric’s character. He seemed simple at first: cruel and calculating. I knew that it was a bad idea to snap at him from the first moment I met him at the rooftop. An inner voice had told me to stay away from him. Obviously, I didn’t listen to it and I don’t intend to do so in the near future. I am curious and I want to know the truth about him, and now that he has assigned himself as my personal trainer, I don’t have a choice anyway. I will figure him out.

“Wait.” Eric suddenly shouts and I startle. “You forgot your jacket.”

I turn around to see that Eric is walking towards me with my black jacket in one had, I remember that I had put it on the floor next to one of the punching bags. I completely forgot about it. He hands it over to me and our fingers brush for just a moment.

“Thanks.” I hope me thanking him won’t become a habit.

Eric nods. “Now leave and see that you take a shower before breakfast.” He snarls at me and for a moment I am once taken aback by his sudden mood swings. I glare at him angrily.

“No need to get cocky.” I fling back at him and strut out of the room. I ignore the tickling on my hand where he touched me and make my way back to the dormitory. He remains an asshole.

 

When we enter the training room a few minutes before eight, I glance at the board with our ranking. I expect myself to still be ranked seventh, but I am taken by surprise when I see that I am ranked sixth. Alec seems to have noticed the change as well – he is now placed seventh again. He shoots me a questioning look. I shrug and shake my head. I know why he is confused. I did nothing that could have improved my rank. I know that if anything he is the better fighter of the two of us. I didn’t have any official training yesterday, we weren’t even watched when we went the training room yesterday afternoon. And the day before that I only beat Kendall and that shouldn’t have pushed up my ranking since I still remember Four telling us that we wouldn’t get points for being someone with a lower ranking.

Eric enters the room. Didn’t he say he’d get me to pass initiation? He catches my glance and I nod in the direction of the board and then look back at him. He quickly glances at the board as well but when he looks me in the eyes again, he does nothing. He keeps his neutral, arrogant expression and eventually goes over to Four to talk to him. _Oh, how I hate not being able to read people’s thoughts._

We don’t fight today in training. Today’s focus lies on fitness and strength. It turns out that my condition is not as good as I thought during the last few days of training. After only five laps around the training room I am short of breath and once we are done with ten laps my breathing is fast and I need longer than most of my fellow initiates to get my breathing back to normal. Four is watching me and Dale, who was last with me to finish the laps. I probably should add cardio training to my morning routine.

Another thing, that I learn today, is that I am not good with throwing a knife. While the aim is good, I can’t put enough force behind the throw and the knife never hits the target with the pointy end. I watch Charles, who is standing next to me, closely when he throws his next knife. He holds it in a different way than I do and when he lets it go, it sticks in the outer circle of the target. I try it another couple of times, and after a while that feels like hours I finally manage to hit the target with the pointy end of the knife – although it still doesn’t stick.

I feel someone standing and breathing behind me. “You’re weak, initiate.” Eric spits out.

“The name’s Cas.” I reply, but don’t turn around. I throw another knife. It bounces of the target and lands on the floor. That was my last knife and I have to pick them up. I glance to both my sides and see that Charles is still throwing his knives, but all of them stick in the target, and Jay on the other side of me also just threw his last knife. The risk of getting hit is therefore relatively small and I go forward to pick mine up. When I walk back to my place I see that Eric is still standing there and I walk a bit straighter.

He waits until I am about to continue to speak again. “You need to use your whole body, not just the force of your arm.” He doesn’t say anything else and just walks away from me. I frown. How do I use my whole body to throw a knife?

“Eric’s right.” Four suddenly says. “You’re weak, but you can compensate that if you use your whole strength. Like this-” Four takes one of my knives and throws it at the target. With a ‘thud’ it sticks in the middle of the target. “See?” He looks at me expectantly and I nod. Within the next three throws I manage to make a knife stick, even if it only barely stays there. A wave of excitement rushes through my body and I smile.

“Good.” Four nods approvingly. “Continue.”

 

During lunch I sit with Jay and Alec again and we talk about random topics. I think, at this point, they are really some kind of friends of me. I don’t know what they like about me that makes them want to be around me, but at least I know where I am at with them. They are easy to read. They are not as complicated and twisted as Eric.

From what I understood, they have been friends for many years and both of them always had admired the Dauntless so they transferred here together. Even though I only know them for a week or so, I can’t imagine one of them without the other. I giggle when Alec jokes about Mia and the fact that she couldn’t hit the target with her knife earlier. She even had asked Four for help – with a flirtatious voice and a charming smile, much to the annoyance of Charles and the entertainment of the rest of the initiates. Four hadn’t bat an eyelid and explained it to her in his cold instructor voice.

The training in the afternoon passes uneventful, though almost everyone sees the cold and angry glances Charles would send Mia now and then. Eric isn’t there the whole time and Four keeps us busy doing push ups and other exercises for the strength training. At the end of the day I am so tired and worn out that after a quick dinner I immediately go to bed and fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know I said on tumblr that "capture the flag" would be in this chapter... I am sorry, but I got carried away ;) Next chapter though!
> 
> If you wanna stay updated about my writing process you might want to check out my tumblr we-coud-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com :)
> 
> I have a two month break before the next semester starts! Which is a good thing for writing, but sadly, I have this huge essay I have to write. If I manage alright, I should be done with it within 3-4 weeks. I will keep writing and updating this story in that time, no worries! Though I'll probably only have time to write in the evenings so updates might take a tiny bit longer. Sorry!
> 
> Let me know what you think of this chapter! I know that there isn't happeneing an awfully lot, but be patient. Chaper 5 is in work :)
> 
> (as always: english is not my native language and I don't have a beta - sorry for any mistakes)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terribly sorry that it took so long for me to update! I have a lot of work to do for my assignment for uni and on top of that I got sick last week :(
> 
> I also now have a beta! Shout out to Keelie, who is really lovely and let's herself get spoiled to help me! Check out her tumblr (bittersweetxcatastrophe.tumblr.com)!

I wake up when I hear people laughing and shouting in the hallway. I check my watch. I only slept for about three hours. What is all that noise about? Only a mere moment later the door to our dormitory is crashed open and people with flashlights storm into the room.

“Everybody up!” It’s Eric. I sit up and squint my eyes from the bright light. Everybody around me is waking up. “Come on! I want everyone by the tracks. You have three minutes!”

The people, older Dauntless members obviously, all leave the room again and we quickly get up. I am fast to pull on my black pants and take my jacket to put on while I run behind Mia and Jay. I still wear the shirt I slept in but at the moment I really don’t care. I just want to make it to the train in time. Jay pushes people out of his way in front of me and I hear them laugh instead of shouting after us in anger as I expected. It’s clear that they witness this more often from initiates.

We arrive in time and I curse silently under my breath. While I am completely awake by now, I do not welcome this feeling. My whole body aches from the training and I am exhausted. My energy for this day is spent, and yet here I stand, in the middle of a group of Dauntless members, transfers and Dauntless-born initiates. Most of them I have only seen briefly before and I barely know any names. The only faces I recognize besides the other transfers are Eric, Four, Tris, Lauren, Miles and Ace. I am surprised to see the latter two, since I am pretty sure, that they don’t have anything to do with the initiates - not counting giving them tattoos and treating them in the infirmary.

I look around the scene. Tris and Four are standing together with two guys and laugh loudly about something. The guys look like they are brothers, I think. Eric is standing with Ace and Miles. Miles and Ace talk silently with each other, while Eric watches the initiates. For a short moment his eyes lock with mine, but then his gaze shifts to two Dauntless-born initiates who just arrived at the tracks. I don’t know their names.

“Okay, everyone grab a gun and some ammunition!” Eric shouts and we quickly make our way to the boxes in front of him. The guns look different than the ones we use in training and I understand when someone behind me exclaims: “Paintballs! Awesome!”

Only a minute or two later the train arrives and we start running next to it, one by one jumping on it. The members are the first ones to be on the train and we follow them quickly. I am relieved when I manage to jump on it without stumbling. Once we have left the compound behind Eric and Four stand in the middle of the car.

“Listen up. We’ll play capture the flag at the navy pier. This is Dauntless tradition and we take this game very serious here.” Eric looks around to see if he has everyone’s attention. “Four and I will be the team captains and each team will equally consist of Dauntless members, transfers and Dauntless-born initiates.”

Four continues. “One team will go off first and hide their flag. The second team will do the same then. The goal is to capture the other team’s flag first. All clear?”

“What do we get when we win?” Of course, it’s Mia who asks that question.

Eric glares at her. “You win.”

She doesn’t reply to that and only mutters something to Charles.

Eventually, Four turns towards Eric. “Shall we?”

“You go first.”

Four nods and looks around. “Jane.”

“Charles.”

“Nate.”

“Mia.” I don’t think I am surprised that Eric picked her. In a way, they have that same mean aura.

“Jay.”

Eric looks around and finally his gaze stays on me. “Cas.” He says then. I frown, but say nothing. I should have expected that he would pick me for his team.

“Alec.” Four continues.

“Cedric.”

“Dale.”

“Kendall’s left so she’s with me.”

I don’t know the faces and names of the Dauntless initiates so I barely pay attention. I notice though, that in the end Miles and Ace are part of Eric’s team as well as Lauren, the instructor of the Dauntless-born initiates. I think in total, each team consists of around fifteen people, give or take.

“Wanna jump off first again, Four?” Eric asks.

“This year that pleasure is all yours.”

“Ah, not acting so _stiff_ this year?” Eric snarls and I can see Four scowl at him. Eric smirks. There must be more behind that comment, but before I have enough time to think about it, Eric signals us to jump off.

No one falls, though a few of the initiates stumble a bit. I am not one of them. Eric leads us towards the Navy Pier and stops somewhere where the entrance probably used to be.

“We have a few minutes before the other team gets off the train to decide on a place where to hide our flag and a strategy to get their flag.” Eric says with a loud, clear voice. “Ideas.” It’s a demand.

“Keep moving. Never settle down and take the flag with us.” A girl with chin-long bright blue hair suggests. She’s a Dauntless-born initiate.

“And what if the person with the flag gets caught by someone from the other team?” Mia snaps at her.

The girl glares at her. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Look for an open space. Let them come to us.” Mia looks triumphant and proud of her plan.

“That’s stupid.” Every head in the team turns to me at my loud declaration. “It _is_ stupid.” I say, stressing the words. I catch Mia’s gaze. She looks like she’s going to kill me.

“I take you have an idea as well, then?” Eric sends me an expectant look.

“I do.” I nod and don’t look away from him. “We need to hide the flag somewhere where the other team definitely can’t see it – inside a building.” I look around and have a spontaneous idea. “We hide it in the building at the far end of the pier and then we can go on full attack on the other team.”

“What about the flag and its defense?”

“We won’t need to protect the flag. It’s a waste of power.”

“But-“

I cut Mia of. “No, the pier is a dead end. Four’s team can only take one way to get to the flag – should they find out where it’s hidden – and it’s the same way we take to get to their flag.”

“It’s a risk.” Eric says with a booming voice.

I glare at him. “But it’s a risk worth taking if we want to win.”

“Good.” He nods once. “It’s a plan. Let’s get moving.” I am surprised about how quickly he agreed with my plan. I don’t even know how I came up with it. I didn’t have the intention to take over the lead like that.

We run to the end of the pier and stand behind a big, round building. Some of the windows are broken and a girl with fire red hair climbs in to hide the flag. A few minutes later, when we’re sure no one can see it from the outside, she comes out of the building again.

“What do we do now?” Kendall asks.

“We find out where the other team’s flag is, of course.” Mia declares and frowns at Kendall.

“How?” Eric demands to know. It’s still … weird to see him as an instructor, even though I probably have seen him as one more often than any other initiate, thinking of my ‘private’ training sessions with him… and that I am the only one during the normal training that he actually kind of gives advice, as rude as he is while doing so. Of course, he knows what to do next and I bet he would command us to follow his own plan, if this wasn’t initiation. We don’t play this game _just_ for fun, I am guessing.

“We climb the roof and get a good vintage point.” The dauntless-born with the blue hair chimes in. Eric nods, but nobody moves. I watch the Dauntless members. Ace and Miles exchange a small grin and Lauren stands next to them, clearly unimpressed. Since she’s obviously a few years older than Eric, she must have played this game a couple of times with the initiates.

“No one?” Eric scowls at us. “We won’t win if you just stand here and do nothing.”

Of course, next to the _learning experience_ , this game was all about winning. From the first moment on the train that was clear. Pride is something everyone has in Dauntless and winning this game, a Dauntless tradition, would mean a boost of pride and I am sure, that Eric does not like being the loser. I certainly don’t want to be around him should we lose.

I look at the building. It’s not very high. It’s round and about two stories high, with a small dome on it. It shouldn’t be too hard to climb onto the roof and I am relatively sure that I could make it without falling down. I watch the other initiates. Not even Mia, who constantly wants to prove how good she is and how dauntless she is, shows much interest - instead she busies herself with whispering something to Charles.

“I’ll do it.” My stomach tightens when I step forward and towards the building.

“You? Are you sure you can climb that?” Mia snaps and steps in front of me.

“Well, since you aren’t, I indeed will climb that.” I push her out of my way and find a good place to start climbing. No one else says anything and I pull myself higher and higher. I was right - it’s easy to get to the top. There are lots of big cracks in the walls and the window ledges are good to climb onto. The dome is more difficult to climb though and I take a moment to observe it. I take a deep breath and go ahead. I am relieved when I reach the top without any difficulties and take a few moments to just breathe.

It’s a wonderful feeling, standing there. It’s a warm and clear summer night and the wind is only a cool breeze. The pier is dark and the only light is that of the moon. I scan the area in front of me. It takes me a while to see any details in the darkness, but eventually I see a glimpse of something bright shining. It doesn’t take long to make out the figures around the flag. None of them have their flashlight on. I try to remember the positions of those I can see and then turn around to find a good way to climb back down.

This first part of my way back down goes by without any problems, but as I climb down the wall I lose my balance and my foot slips. I shriek and barely am able to get a good grip with my hands. My heart is pumping hard and my arms hurt. I hang in the air, ten or fifteen feet above the ground. I could fall at any moment.

I hate falling. I don’t wanna fall. Panic starts building in my head, I am shaking and it’s not contributing to my plan to get a better grip and find something for my feet to climb onto.

“Are you alright?” I hear someone call to me.

I remember that they are all standing below me, watching every step of me. Mia is there, and so are Charles and the Dauntless-born initiates. And Eric. _You can’t let them know that you’re afraid_ , I tell myself. I struggle, and finally I find a crack in the wall and am able to stand again instead of hanging. I sigh in relief. “Yeah. I am fine!” I shout back, my voice only quavering slightly. I hope they don’t notice.

Once my feet touch solid ground again, I take a deep breath. I need to calm down.

“Where are they?” Eric snarls. I look up at him, just in time to see that Ace is scowling at him.

“Down by the Ferris wheel. They hid the flag in one of the lower carriages.” I answer and notice that my voice sounds clear and loud. Good. I don’t need any remarks about it. I am in Dauntless - I am not supposed to show any fear.

It takes a few minutes and our strategy is clear. I stay in the back and don’t say much more. It was already my idea and I am still shaking slightly. I don’t need any attention on me right now.

“Alright. Let’s go!” Eric commands and everyone grabs their guns and we jog after him. The girl with the blue hair jogs next to me and I see her glancing at me from time to time.

“What?” I finally ask when I get annoyed.

“You alright?” She watches me. “That fall must have been quite a shock for you.”

“I am good.” I reply shortly.

“I see.” When I don’t reply, she laughs. “I’m Sky, by the way.”

“Cas.”

“I know.” She grins. “I’ve heard about you.”

“You did?” But before she can answer we reach our meeting point and stop. We need to be quiet now, to give us a few more minutes to observe our surrounding and see where the opponent’s team has positioned itself. I only make out about eight people, a few are probably out of my sight, but I am guessing that at least two or three stayed behind to defend the flag, just in case. That would probably be Four’s strategy. He’s not as straight forward and aggressive as Eric is. Eric didn’t have a problem with my plan and with the risk that is connected with it.

“You know our strategy.” Eric says quietly. “Remember, this counts. If we win, it might improve your rank immensely.” He says emphatically. He doesn’t say what happens to our rank if we lose. “Go.”

We all leave in pairs of two or three, each group taking another way to surround them and then take them by surprise. One group, the one with Mia and two Dauntless-born initiates, is supposed to unarm the people defending the flag and then take the flag. I am paired with Miles and Cedric and even though I don’t really want to admit it to myself, I am a bit disappointed that I am not with Eric. It would have been interesting to see him fighting and being in action.

Soon enough we are already in the middle of shooting, hiding and running. As predicted, we surprise Four’s team and with our quick and aggressive attack we are in a clear advantage. Miles sort of leads us and we are lucky and are barely hit. Only once someone hits me with a green paintball and I am quick to return the attack. I hit my attacker on the chest and let out a scream of triumph. I hadn’t expected to actually hit that person.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Mia and the two other initiates fighting with four or five people from Four’s team. Above them is the carriage with the flag in it. I can see it glowing form where I stand. Mia is struggling to win, since they are outnumbered in their fight, while in the open field our team is in advantage – our flag isn’t defended. I show Miles and Cedric what I just discovered and we run towards them. Everything happens quite fast and I am left with no opponent to fight, instead I eye the carriage I know the flag is in. It’s only a short climb but I remember the sensation of almost falling down a building and my stomach clenches. I don’t want to risk falling again, yet I want to win and I have the chance to be the one that takes the flag and ends this game. I would make an impression on everyone else – including Eric. It’d improve my rank. I don’t really have a choice, I think and hang the gun around my back and climb the few feet up the carriage. It was easier than I thought and after I take a deep breath, I hold up the flag above my head and let out a triumphant scream.

We won. _I won_.

 

Half an hour later, I sit in the train between Sky and the red haired girl – whose name is Zora – and am just handing the flag over to Sky. Four, Tris and their Dauntless friends are standing at one end of the train car. Four looks angry and miserable. He didn’t take losing very well and it amuses me, just as much as Eric’s booming pride about our victory. It’s like they are not our instructors and leaders, but some young boys from school. Mia sits a few feet away from me and just can’t shut up about how she managed to make this victory ours. I let her. I am too tired to interfere and tell her who of the two us actually had the better idea in the beginning and who of us captured the flag. Jay and Alec were more reasonable about my victory and congratulated me with huge grins on their faces.

I turn towards Sky when she laughs about something Zora said a moment ago. “Sky, what did you mean earlier when you said you knew who I am?” I ask her. “I mean, how do you know me?”

Sky turns to me and grins cheekily. “Well, it doesn’t happen often that someone stands up against Eric and snaps back at him. I should know, I lived here all my life and in the past three years Eric made it clear that no one should get in his way.” She shrugs. “So of course, we’ve heard about you.”

I frown at her. “And what else have you heard about me exactly – besides my name?”

“That even though you risk a lot by standing up to him,” she glances towards Eric, who is talking to Miles and Ace. “He hasn’t done _anything_ to you.” She finishes and winks at me. I raise my eyebrows at that.

“What do you mean by _that_?”

“Well, if you’d be someone else, you’d probably be either lying dead in the chasm or living factionless. Yet, here you are.” She says it as if it’s obvious. Maybe it is? I have been wondering the same thing as well for the last few days. I look in Eric’s direction again. He seems to be arguing with Ace and Miles now, although they are almost standing too far away from me to hear anything but some bits and pieces.

“… an initiate, Ace!” Eric stands with his back turned in my direction. He talks quietly, but there’s this _edge_ to his voice.

“…leader… do what you want…”

“Just … talk to …” Miles and Ace talk to him in an insistent tone and suddenly it clicks. Why haven’t I thought about that earlier? Miles and Ace _are_ actually friends with Eric. I had the impression about Ace already when Eric brought me to the infirmary a couple of days ago. But Miles … I’ve only met him once when he got my tattoo done, but he still knew who I am. Eric must have told him about me. Why would Eric-

My string of thoughts is disrupted when Sky nudges me with her elbow. “Hey, you still there? We need to get off the train in a few.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” I hastily answer and get up to stand next to her.

“You impressed him with your attack plan earlier, you know that?”

“How would _you_ know that?” I frown at her.

“I just do.” She laughs and it’s time for us to jump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and please consider leaving a short review :)
> 
> Check out my tumblr for regular updates on my progress with this fic: we-could-be-four-and-six


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'What?' You may ask. 'A new update only 4 days after the last update that took almost 2 weeks?'
> 
> Yeah, I am trying to make up for that with a fast and a looooooong chapter. I had so much fun writing this. I really hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! :)
> 
> And a BIG THANK YOU to Keelie, my awesome beta - who also contributed a few ideas for this chapter and is the reason it got done so quickly!

I am running through the hallways of the Dauntless compound and stop in front of the door to the training room. I am late. I overslept this morning and now I am late to training with Eric. I hoped that he would cancel our private session this morning since we only came back around three in the morning, but he hadn’t said a word to me after we won, he didn’t even congratulate me for getting the flag. I finally get my breathing back to normal and step through the door. Eric is already there and has his back turned towards me. He’s practicing on a punching bag. I slowly walk in his direction, dreading the moment he will see me and-

“You’re late, initiate!” Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been dreading.

“I’m sorry. I overslept.” I apologize through gritted teeth.

“That’s not an excuse.” He snarls at me. “I didn’t get more sleep than you did, yet I was here on time.”

“It’s only been twenty minutes, Eric! It’s not the end of the world!”

“But it could very well be your end as a Dauntless member!”

“You’re overreacting!” I am almost screaming by now. How dare he gets that angry about me when I’ve only had two hours of sleep after capture the flag? My muscles are sore from the hard training from the day before and I am still worn out by that.

“I am not. I am trying to help you and you dismiss that chance like that!”

“Why do you even care to help me?”

Eric glares at me and says … nothing.

“What? Aren’t you going to tell me? If I am such a burden for you and annoy you so much, why do you even keep meeting me here every morning? I haven’t done anything to you at all! Excuse me, that I was late. I slept for two hours, but I still came here for this training!” I am furious. Why did I even come here in the first place? I should have known that this wouldn’t end very well.

My little speech seems to wake him up. “You’re here for training? Really? Go and run three laps.”

“You still didn’t answer my question.” I cross my arms in front of my chest and stare at him. “Why are you offering me to help me of all people?”

“And I said,” he says with emphasis on each word. “If you want these private sessions to continue, you run three laps. Now.”

We hold eye contact for at least two minutes. I am thinking. I want the answer to why he’s training me, but obviously, he won’t be the one to tell me that. Not in that mood anyway. I am also curious about his conversation with Miles and Ace and what his relationship to them really is and why the hell he had told Miles about me, but I don’t even dare to think about asking Eric those questions, if he’s already reacting that aggressive to that simple question. Eric is a jerk for behaving like that, but I don’t have anything to hold against him, nothing that will make him speak, so after a while I nod, break the eye contact and start jogging.

“Faster!” Eric shouts and I start running. “You need to improve your cardio!”

The rest of the private training with Eric goes by and I am tired and exhausted at the end of it. We trained more than half an hour longer than usual, even though I was only twenty minutes late and because of that I only have less than an hour left until the official training with Four begins. I decide to skip breakfast and go back to the dormitory to catch up with at least a bit of sleep. I leave quickly. I want to get away from Eric and his mood as fast as possible. Although he didn’t hurt me when we fought with each other, I am sure he wanted to do just that.

 

After what feels like only seconds I am shaken awake and open my eyes. Jay and Alec stand next to my bed and grin down at me.

“Get up, sleepyhead! Training starts in five minutes!” I yawn and get up. I am still in the clothes I wore to training with Eric, so I don’t have to change and just follow my two friends to the training room.

“Did someone tell you that you look awful?” Alec says to me and smirks.

“Oh, thank you.” The sarcasm is thick, but I know that Alec doesn’t mean anything bad by it.

“We also noticed that you were gone earlier.” Jay adds and frowns at me. “Where were you?”

I shrug and look at the floor. I don’t want to tell them about the private training sessions and I remember very well that Eric explicitly told me not to.

“Cas. You know we are not stupid.”

“You’ve been up early and gone for days now.”

I sigh. Of course I couldn’t hide anything very well from them. They are former Candor after all. “I am not supposed to tell.” I finally say.

“We can keep a secret very well.”

“We wouldn’t tell anyone. Promised.”

Fortunately, we reach the training room at that moment and I have an excuse not to answer. I don’t know either of them for a very long time - I only met them here in Dauntless. I never noticed them in Candor. I like to think that I can trust them with a secret, but I have to be honest to myself and I know that, in fact, I don’t know how they would react if they knew that I am spending so much time with Eric and getting an advantage through our private sessions.

We stand in a half circle around Four and Eric and for a minute it’s silent. Then Four starts speaking.

“Today, we’ll do some cardio training and then you’ll need some target practice.” I notice that his voice has a sour taste to it and he glares at us. Eric stands straight next to him. He holds his head high and I can see a faint smirk on his lips. I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. “You will also want to check your rankings, and when you’ve done that, I want six laps from everyone.”

Like everyone, I take a look at the board with the rankings and hold my breath when I see that I am ranked fifth now. Winning last night had indeed improved my rank a lot. I look over to Eric and an angry knot forms in my stomach again just from seeing him. He’s discussing something with Four and neither of them is paying attention to us. _At least something_ , I think.

I start running with the others and need to try hard to keep up with them. I am tired to the bones and exhausted. I am not even sure if I’ll manage to finish the six laps Four wants us to do. I don’t want to run anymore and when Eric shouts, “Faster!” all I want to do is slap him. I am breathing hard, my heart is pumping fast in my chest and when I am starting my fourth round around the training room my vision gets blurry and a moment later everything is just black. I hear my blood rushing in my ears when I hit the ground with my body. I am gone.

 

When I open my eyes I am greeted with a bright, white light and I have to blink a couple of times until I adjust to it. I look around and after a few moments I recognize that I am in the infirmary once again. I groan and lie my head back down on the pillow.

“Cas. You’re awake!” A familiar voice says and I see Ace coming towards my bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” I answer and notice that it’s true, almost anyways. I am still sore but I feel a lot more rested. My head shoots up. “What time is it?”

“Just after noon.” Ace replies and notes something down on her tablet. When she looks up again, she smiles at me. “Don’t worry about training. The afternoon session has been cancelled.”

“Why?” I sit up in my bed.

“Everyone’s exhausted and tired, so Four decided that it would be the best if everyone would get some extra rest.”

“What happened to me?” I finally ask. The last thing I remember is running in the training room. I don’t recall how I got here or who brought me here.

“You collapsed in training.” She explains. “At least, that’s what Eric told us. That you must have been too tired and exhausted.”

I frown at her. “Eric?!”

She smirks slightly. “Yeah. He brought you here.”

“Great.” I groan. Now he will definitely see me as weak and probably decide that I am not worth his time so early in the morning if I already collapse after such a simple task as running. And he helped me again. Why did he have to bring me here? Why didn’t Four take me here? I am sure the initiates would be fine without him for a while.

I feel Ace looking at me and stare back at her. When she doesn’t say anything, I sigh. “He’s an asshole. Eric, I mean.”

“I know.” She simply says.

Then I remember seeing her and Miles with Eric together after we won capture the flag. “But you’re still friends with him.” She nods. “Why?”

“Because he’s not an asshole all the time. You, out of all initiates, should know that, from what I’ve heard.”

“What do you even know about me?”

“More than you think I do.” She turns away from to go to the bed next to mine.

“Hey! What things do you know about me? Who told you about me?” I ask louder. “Eric told you about me, didn’t he?”

Ace shrugs from where she stands, her back still turned in my direction. She doesn’t reply.

“He’s such a jerk.” I mutter.

“I never said that he wasn’t, Cas. But I do know him and I know many things about him that you don’t know. Yet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I am frustrated now. Why can’t she give my clear, straight forward answers?

“You’ll find out, I guess.” She finally turns around and I am surprised when I see that she’s smiling at me. “You can leave, if you want to. Try to rest and go to bed early tonight. I know that you need to be up at five and you’ll need all the sleep you can get.”

“How good friends are you with Eric, exactly?”

“We were in the same initiation class.” She grins at me one last time and leaves me.

 

I decide to go to the dining hall. Lunch has just started and my stomach is grumbling. I remember that I skipped breakfast this morning and get an extra large portion of meat and potatoes. I look around the room and see Sky sitting at a table with Zora and another guy. Since I don’t see Alec or Jay, I walk over to them and sit down next to Sky.

“Hey.” I greet them. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.” Sky grins at me and scoots over a bit so that I have more space. She gestures to the guy sitting opposite of me. “This is Nick.”

“Cas.” I introduce myself to him and we nod at each other. They start their conversation where they left of before I got to them and I concentrate on eating and think about what Ace told me - or rather didn’t tell me - about Eric. I would get to know him better. That’s basically what she said. Of course, I am curious about his character, though after his behaviour this morning and his constant mood swings towards me, I am not so sure if I’ll actually really get the chance to get to know him better. He _was_ mean to me, aggressive even, more than he usually was and I don’t like to admit it, but he was scary this morning. I don’t think he’ll ever let me get to know him better.

“Hey, Cas, we want to get a new tattoo after lunch.” Sky grins at me. “And you definitely need some more ink on your skin!” She laughs and Zora, Nick and I join her. I quickly agree to come with them, because I remember that Miles works there. If Ace didn’t want to answer my questions, maybe he will.

The tattoo parlour is rather empty and I suppress a grin when I see that a woman with black hair is currently working – as well as Miles. The others greet them. It’s clear that they know them for a while, but since all Sky, Zora and Nick are all Dauntless-born it doesn’t surprise me. We walk around and skip through several design books. I decide that I want a tattoo on my left wrist. Compared to my right one with the Dauntless flames on it, it feels weirdly empty. The idea of something simple fascinates me and with my idea in my mind I go over to Miles and wait patiently for him to have time for me.

“Ah, Cas. Always a pleasure.”

“Miles.” I say simply as I sit down.

“You did a good job last night.” He acknowledges.

I smile. “Thanks. Improved my rank quite a bit as well.”

“I can imagine that.” He states. “What can I get you today?”

“I want three black bands on my wrist.” I explain how the one closest to my hand should be the thickest, while the outer band should only be a thin stripe. He doesn’t question it and just nods when I finish. “And… I want answers, Miles.” I add and cause him to frown sceptically at me. “Real answers, too, not some of that crap you told me the last time.”

“Really?” He asks, preparing the ink and the needle. “What kind of answers?”

“Eric told you about me. That’s how you knew my name the last time.”

“That’s not a question.” He disinfects my skin. “But to be fair, yes, that’s true.”

“So you’re friends?”

“Yeah.” Miles sets the needle on my skin and begins. I try my best to ignore the pain.

“What did you, Eric and Ace talk about last night on the train?”

“To be honest with you, Cas, that’s really none of your business.”

“Well, it is, if that’s the reason Eric is behaving like a huge asshole even though we won the game last night.”

“When is he ever not acting like one…” Miles mutters sarcastically.

“I mean it, it’s worse than normally.” I glare at him. “So what did you do?”

“What makes you think that we did anything?”

“I suppose that even if you didn’t do anything to him, you would at least know what upset him in the first place.”

“Interesting thought.” Miles admits.

“So?”

“We may have said … _things_ to him last night that may go against his reputation.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask for the second time today. None of the answers I get lately are even remotely satisfying.

“Eric sometimes needs someone to push him into the right direction.”

“What direction?”

“Now, that would be telling.” Miles grins and finishes with my tattoo.

I groan annoyed. “What is it with you and Ace and not wanting to give me any answers?!”

Miles looks me dead in the eyes for a few moments and suddenly starts laughing. “You know, Cas, we don’t know each other for very long, but I feel like that we are going to have a great time together in the future.”

 

When we leave the tattoo parlour together, everyone has one or two new tattoos. Neither Ace nor Miles were any help and I still have no idea what last night’s conversation was about. I am inquisitive about it and I know that it’s probably really not my place to ask questions about the private life of Eric, _a Dauntless leader_. But I can’t help myself. I want to know why he is, who he is, since what I actually learned from his two friends is that there’s more behind his authoritarian behaviour.

“What did you and Miles talk about?” Sky asks me while we’re walking through the hallways of Dauntless. I don’t even know if we’re having a certain destination.

“You know Miles?” Sky nods. “I just wanted to ask him something.”

“Something?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” She laughs and so do I.

A few minutes later, I ask, “Sky? Is that even your real name?”

“It’s short for Skylar, actually, but I like Sky better.” She grins. “Also, it gave me a great reason to dye my hair blue.”

“Seriously?” I giggle. She shrugs and laughs and we are joined by Nick’s and Zora’s laughter. We talk a bit more and eventually we find our way to the bottom of the chasm and sit there for a few hours, them telling me stories about their lives at Dauntless from when they were little dependents and in return I tell them about Candor. I am surprised by how welcoming they are towards me and just let me in their small circle, so to speak. From the stories they tell it’s clear, that they are Dauntless through and through and it’s obvious why they chose this faction. It is _so them_ and it makes me doubt my own decision. Am I Dauntless enough to be here? Or is the Candor still too big of a part of my personality? I know that I improved a lot since I got here and I have tattoos and a piercing. From an objective point of view I am Dauntless. I guess, I’ll find out when I pass initiation or don’t.

When it’s gotten late afternoon, I excuse myself from Sky, Zora and Nick and make my way back to the dormitory. It’s not empty as I hoped and I get stared at by Nate, Jane and Charles, who probably took a nap - just like I plan to do now. I set my alarm for dinner time and quickly fall asleep.

 

“Hey, Cas!” Jay calls me when he sees me looking around in the dining hall with my tray with food in my hands. I smile and a go towards his and Alec’s table.

“Hey.” I say when I sit down.

“What happened during training?” They both look worried. It must have looked worse than I thought.

“I just collapsed from exhaustion. I am fine now though.”

“We all didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, but none of us collapsed.” Jay frowns at me and I gulp. He’s right.

“Well, I just got less sleep than you.” I take a big bite from my hamburger and don’t look at them. I’m not lying.

“But why, Cas? We are worried.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. You don’t even know me that long.” I say when I swallowed.

“So what? Just tell us what’s going on with you! You can trust us.”

I shake my head. “I’m not telling you anything, guys. It’s none of your business.”

“It is when it’s the reason you collapse in training.” Alec argued.

“It’s really not!” I hiss at them. I still don’t want to tell them about my extra training and still don’t plan to. And even though I know they don’t mean any harm by asking me about it and they are really nice and fun to be around, I am utterly annoyed by their questions by now.

“And what is even going on with you an-” Alec starts to ask, but stops abruptly.

“Me and who?” I shoot him a questioning look, but Alec stares at a spot above me. I follow his gaze and see Eric standing behind me, glaring at me.

“I need you to come with me, initiate.” He demands.

“Why?” I query him and squint my eyes.

“It’s of an urgent matter, _and_ because I say so.” I don’t move. “If you would follow me then?” He’s still not asking, he is ordering me to come with him.

“I literally just sat down to eat. Can’t it wait til after dinner?”

“No. Follow me.”

I debate my options for a few moments, and realize that I don’t really have any. I am sure that more people than just Alec and Jay are watching us and I probably crossed a line – once again – by not following his orders immediately. “Fine.” I finally grumble and get up. Jay and Alec shoot me questioning looks. They are just as confused as I am about what Eric wants from me.

But come to think of it, I realize that Eric probably wants to scold me for my behaviour in our training session this morning and then blame me for being weak during the real training. Then he’ll probably shout at me for not following his orders and do whatever he wants to give me a punishment. _Great_ , I think. We leave the dining hall and I notice Ace, Miles and another girl watching us and I almost can’t believe my eyes when Ace actually _winks_ at me. I shoot her a questioning look, but she just grins at me and I follow Eric out of the dining hall and through some hallways.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Somewhere where it’s not so crowded.” Eric answers a few moments later.

“What is it you want to talk to me about? I already apologized for being late this morning and I really couldn’t do anything about blacking out during training. It won’t happen again.”

“I know.” He simply states and finally stops walking and turns around, facing me. I haven’t paid much attention to where we were going, but I can hear the chasm in the distance. We are in an empty hallway, without any doors and the lightning is rather bare. Eric looks at me with a neutral expression that makes it impossible for me to read what he’s thinking.

“So what is it then?”

“You have new tattoo.” Eric remarks.

“I do.” I say sceptically.

“I like it. Why did you get it?”

“That’s none of your fucking business, Eric.” I snap at him. “Tell me why you’re keeping me from dinner in this dark hallway.”

He clears his throat and I think I see a nervous expression on his face. “I have been told that I may have been too harsh to you.” I frown at him. I am confused. His voice has changed and I watch him closely to figure out what it is. It’s somewhat softer, not as demanding and harsh like just a couple minutes ago. “I wanted to apologize.”

I stare at him. “You? Apologize to me?” I question him. That’s definitely not what I expected.

“Yes.” He says in a stern voice. “I didn’t mean to be like _that_ to you this morning.”

I don’t know what to say to him. He’s an asshole. He wasn’t behaving so different than before, only worse. I cross my arms in front of my chest.

“I am sorry.” He adds when I don’t say anything.

“And now what?”

“Are you still going to continue training with me?”

“Of course I am. I’m not stupid.”

“Good. You still need it.”

“What do you mean by that? Is it because I collapsed this morning?” I demand to know. “You do realize that things like that can happen when you get only a few hours of sleep, are up and running around in the middle of the night to get a stupid flag and then are expected to be working out again at five in the morning? Not to mention, that yesterday alone was already almost too much and that I could have used some rest instead of some unthankful bastard blaming me for literally everything!”

“I don’t blame you for everything! I just try to help you!” Eric shouts back at me.

“That’s not really working out well, is it?!”

“Which isn’t my fault!”

“Well, it isn’t my fault either! I do the best I can to pass this stage of training. I am working until _I literally black out_ , Eric, and you’re still an asshole about it! You don’t even tell me why you want to help me so badly, out of everyone in my initiate class and even though you clearly see me as a failure! You don’t even care how I feel after blacking out in training!”

Eric stares at me for at least a minute before he mutters, “You talk too much and ask too many questions, Cas.”

And suddenly, before I can even think of a response, my back is pressed against the cold stone wall and Eric is standing very close to me, his face only a mere inches away from mine.

“Wha-” I start but I am cut off when Eric cups my face with his hands and presses his mouth roughly on my lips. I stand there in shock and when I realize that Eric is kissing me I lose all control over my movements. My arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, and I kiss him back. My lips are moving against his, demanding. I close my eyes. The kiss is nothing like I had experienced before. It’s not soft or gentle, but neither of us is aiming for that.

Eventually, Eric breaks the kiss, leaving me panting and flushed against the wall. “Your mouth is really getting you in trouble, Cas.” He mutters, before he leans forward to capture my lips in another kiss.

It’s that sentence that causes my brain to finally click. Eric is kissing me. Before I can think about what I am doing I am trying to push him off me, and when I don’t have enough force, I knee him in his crotch. “GET OFF ME!” I scream. Eric stumbles a few feet backwards and a confused expression, mixed with pain, is written on his face.

“What are you thinking? Why did you kiss me?” My voice is angry and loud. My heart is racing in my chest and I wipe across my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt. “What gave you the right to do that?”

Eric opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off before even a word comes out. “You behave like an asshole, you insult me, you blame me for things that are not my fault and then you think you can just take me to an empty hallway, apologize and kiss me and everything is fine?!”

“I meant it, Cas.” He says, his voice being weirdly calm and it’s an almost pleading look he sends me.

“I very much doubt that, Eric! You are just an asshole who thinks he can do whatever he wants!” I scream at him. “Don’t think, that just because I am an initiate, I am easy to manipulate and easy to get! You’re wrong!” I step closer to him. My voice is threatening and I am amazed that I am able to sound like that.

“It certainly didn’t look and feel like that just a minute ago, Cas!” Eric snaps and smirks arrogantly. It takes only a second for my fist connect to connect with his jaw, taking him by surprise.

“Don’t you _dare_!” I hiss, turn around and quickly leave the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I can't believe that I am close to 20k words. When I started writing after my initial idea, I never though this story would be longer than a 3k one shot!
> 
> I have so many ideas and even already know the ending, so I really hope you stick by, maybe click the 'subscribe' button and leave a comment with your thoughts about this! Thank you xxx
> 
> In the meantime (while you wait for the next update) visit my tumblr (we-could-be-four-and-six) for regular updates on the progress of this story :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. Here's the next bit! Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> And as always: A big thank you to Keelie, my awesome beta :)

Eric doesn’t say anything else when I leave him behind and storm off. Not one Dauntless I come across steps into my way and they always quickly look away once they make eye contact with me. I am sure I look like I want to kill someone. No, not _someone_ \- Eric. The pain in my hand is almost satisfying. I caught him off guard. It was a perfect punch, just like he taught me. I hope he regrets training me when he sees the bruise on his face tomorrow. He deserved it.

What was he thinking? What on earth made him do this - _kissing me_? How dare he do that to me? He has no right. He’s a leader and my instructor. I am sure that it’s not even allowed to be involved with a member. But what is _this_ exactly? I ask myself as I walk through the sheer endless corridors of the Dauntless compound. Eric was angry with me this morning. I was so sure he hated me. Everything about his behaviour towards me practically screamed that. He even said that he’d push me in the chasm if he could.

I look up and find myself by the net we jumped into the first day. The sky I could see from down here was dark and clear. I could see the stars. I climb onto the net and I lie down and close my eyes. I figure that not many people come here. I could still feel his lips on mine. It’s weird. Eric kissed me - and I kissed him back and I have no idea why either happened. I groan in frustration. Why. Why. Why. I don’t get it. I don’t get him. He hates me so much. I’ve seen him looking at me - there was never something kind in it, nothing that would give away that he’d take me away from dinner to kiss me in a dark hallway.

Or was there? I remember him telling me that he liked my new look. It’s only been a few days but it already feels like it’s been ages since that happened and almost doesn’t feel real anymore. He had just said it. He didn’t comment. He did nothing, except to give me _that look_ of his before he turned away.

Eric also accompanied me to the infirmary after I won my first real fight, instead of just telling someone to bring me there or let Four handle it. I realize that I have never seen him take anyone else personally to the infirmary. Hell, he didn’t even talk to any of the other initiates, not unless he would see the need in commenting on the lacking skills of someone. Yet, he and I practically always had conversations, maybe they mostly contained snapping at each other, but it was more than my fellow transfers could say.

Additionally, there are the private training sessions with Eric. He invests time in my training and he doesn’t even seem to mind. He may be his usual self before and after those sessions, but while he is teaching me and training me, he is professional - almost nice. He is very keen about not hurting me. Nonetheless, he still doesn’t tell me why he wants me to pass initiation so badly.

_It’s obvious, Cas! Open your eyes!_

Maybe Eric didn’t tell me, but surely he didn’t just kiss me without having a reason. Right? But he could have so many reasons. He could like me - it would explain some of his behaviour towards me. _No, no._ It’s Eric. Eric, who is reckless and sadistic, who likes to see people suffer and who likes to bully the initiates. He couldn’t possible like _me_ , a transfer from Candor.

He wants to manipulate me, use me. Not with me, though. I am not going to let that happen. I may not be Erudite, but I am smart enough to see that.

 

I go back to the dormitory a few hours later, when I’m sure that everyone’s already asleep and after I woke up from my involuntary nap on the net. I know Jay and Alec would just be asking questions about what Eric wanted and I really don’t want to answer those. I quietly slip under my cover and fall asleep surprisingly quickly.

 

My watch is beeping and I am quick to turn my alarm off. Right. I remember now. It’s time for my training with Eric. I groan, sit up in my bed and rub my eyes. I was thinking about Eric a lot last night and I still completely forgot about our training. I told him yesterday _, before the kiss_ , that I’d still come, even though he is an asshole. Nevertheless, that was before he pressed me against the wall and we kissed. Or he kissed me. I close my eyes and shake my head. Whatever. It probably doesn’t matter, at least it shouldn’t. And I should stop thinking about it.

_Stupid. Stupid_. Why did I decide to come here? I should have known that in spite of what happened last night Eric would still come to the training room and wait for me. He even looks relaxed – unlike me - when he leans against a wall facing the door I just slowly stepped through. Even from where I am I can see that a dark bruise has formed on his face. I realize that not showing up to this meeting would have been a sign of cowardice. Neither of us wants to commit to that since we’re Dauntless so why did I even hope that he wouldn’t show up? I quickly look away from Eric when I notice that he is watching me and walk over to one of the punching bags. I don’t want to talk to him just now.

I am stronger after almost two weeks of training in Dauntless and the punching bag sways under the impacts of my bare fists. My right hand stings a bit with every punch, but I don’t care. I do my best to ignore Eric, even when I can feel him standing behind me, his breath tickling on my neck. We stand like this for at least fifteen minutes. My muscles are still sore, but I welcome the pain in my arms. I can feel my knuckles split from the raw material of the punching bag. Eric clears his throat behind me. I punch the bag again.

“Cas.” Eric says a few moments later. His voice is not quite a whisper, but it’s low and deep. His mouth is close to my ear and a shiver runs down my spine. I still don’t turn around.

“Cassandra.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and jerks me around to face him. I don’t think, I react. Only a fraction of a second later, my fist hits the same spot on his jaw as it did only a couple of hours earlier. Eric eyes widen and his hand slips off my shoulder to cover his jaw.

“Don’t you dare touch me, _Eric._ ” His name is acid in my mouth. “And never, _never_ , call me that name again.” I look him in the eyes. I don’t flinch, I don’t step back from him. Eric looks back at me and his expression changes from surprised to angry before his muscles soften and it’s his usual arrogant face, the face that says absolutely nothing about him or about what he is thinking.

“Do you really think that you can tell me what to do?” He snarls at me.

“Oh, yes. I believe I can.” I snap. “And I have every right to it.”

Eric stares at me. “I thought so.” I don’t reply and Eric continues. “Cas, I do think we need to talk.”

“Oh no. We don’t. I am not here to talk to you. I am not here because of you, not everything in this world happens because of you.” My voice is bitter and cold and I scowl at him.

“You’re clearly angry.”

“Am I really?” I ask sarcastically and Eric has the decency to laugh quietly. “I wonder why.”

“I must admit, Cas, you improved. You took me by surprise twice now. Nice punches. Not a lot of people have managed to do that.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised about something like that if you’re behaving like an asshole.” I counter although I feel proud of myself. I am sure not many people would even risk trying to punch Eric for the sake of their own lives.

“Most people don’t even try to insult me.”

“Who would have thought…” I cross my arms in front of my chest. I stand straight and glare at him. When he doesn’t say anything else, I turn back around and position myself in front of the punching bag. I throw my fist at it and wince when it hits the bag. It was the same hand that had just hit Eric in the face - again.

“You should be careful, Cas. My head is harder than you’d think.” Eric remarks from behind me. “Better get some ice on that.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what is best for me, Eric.” I spit out his name like it’s poison.

“Who will though, if I don’t?”

“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself very well. I don’t need anyone.”

“Fine.” He snaps and finally steps back from me and I almost sigh in relief.

“Fine.”

Eric stops at one of the punching bags, a few feet away from where I stand. So much for hoping he’d leave me alone. What is he even thinking? That he talks to me like that and believes he can do whatever he wants to me? Didn’t he learn his lesson when I punched him the first time? Or the second time? I am sure his bruise must hurt, at least as much as my hand does. I know he’s right, when he told me that I should put some ice on it, but I don’t want to admit it to him.

I feel stupid just standing there in front of the punching bag. Eric had made no comment about our training and neither did I. It seems like that today he wouldn’t teach me anything and I think I am glad about that. I don’t think I could stand being close to him like that anymore at the moment or any time soon. Nevertheless, the result is that I can’t do anything at the moment, since the weapons are kept locked away and it would require _an authority_ to be able to get at least some knives to train with. I sigh and decide to leave.

I walk past Eric without giving him a second glance. He doesn’t either, but when I am almost at the door he calls my name. I don’t know why I stop and turn around to him.

“I’ll be here tomorrow morning, same time.” He says simply and I know what he’s offering me. I also know that I’ll be back tomorrow morning to meet him here and to continue my training with him. Eric knows that I’ll be back. I can see it in his smug expression before he eventually starts punching again. I hate him and yet, I don’t think _I truly do_. I shake my head to push that thought out of my mind.

“Good to know.” Is all I say before I leave.

 

“What the hell happened to your hand?” Sky asks as soon as I sit down next to her with my breakfast. My hand is red and a bit swollen. Punching Eric twice in the last twelve hours hadn’t done any good to it. I look at it. In perspective, it doesn’t even look that bad. I had worse injuries from my fights in training.

“It’s nothing.”

“Your hand didn’t look like that yesterday.” Sky adds and raises an eyebrow. “And there wasn’t any training, soooo…?”

“Fine.” I groan. She wouldn’t shut up anyway. “I had to punch someone.”

“Had to?”

“Yes, precisely.”

“Who-”

“Doesn’t matter, Sky.” I snap. “Sorry.” I quickly apologize. “I am just not in a good mood, that’s all.”

Sky grins at me. “Yeah, I can tell. But, you will tell me eventually, I promise you. And if you don’t – I will find out anyway.” She sounds almost threatening.

I sigh and start eating my toast. I have no doubt that she’ll question me about it later, so long until I give in. Once I tell her it was Eric she will keep asking for reasons. I will have to tell her about the kiss. _The kiss_. Maybe it would be good to get someone’s opinion on it - someone who might know a bit more about Eric than I do. After all, Sky is a Dauntless born and therefore knows him longer than I do..

I look up when suddenly Alec and Jay sit down opposite of Sky and me. They are laughing and giggling like little school girls.

“What’s going on with you guys?” Sky asks them with a full mouth, mumbling a bit. “What’s so funny?”

I just want to tell her that they are always like that, but Jay already opens his mouth. “Did you see Eric this morning?”

“No, why?” She asks curiously.

 _Oh no_. I know what will come next. I slip my hand under the table, hoping that neither Jay nor Alec has noticed it already and pick up some kind of connection. It’s too late for Sky though. I stare down at my plate and try my best to not look suspicious. While I consider telling Sky anyways – not that I have a choice – but it’s none of the guys’ business.

“He has a bad bruise on his face.”

“Really bad. Someone punched him hard.”

“Are you serious?” I look up to see Sky’s eyes flicker in my direction.

“Dead serious.” Jay says and grins.

“Oh, look.” Alec nods towards the entrance and both Sky and I turn around. Eric just entered the dining hall and I watch him from across the room. Even from where we sit the dark colour of the bruise immediately pulls the attention to it. I notice that we are not the only once that saw Eric enter. I see people put their head together and whisper. I bet it’s not very often that they see one of their leaders, especially Eric, with a bruise in their face. I concentrate on the food in front of me again. I don’t want Eric catching me how I watch him.

 

The next few days pass. It’s our last week of stage one. Sky tried to interrogate me a few times about who I hit and if it was actually Eric – although I am pretty sure she already knows the answer to that. I do my best to avoid any further questions from her and usually quickly change the subject. So far, I’ve been surprisingly successful. Other than that, Sky and I have become rather good friends as well as Zora and Nick. Jay and Alec were welcomed to the group almost immediately and we basically spend most of our time outside of training together.

Eric … was Eric. Cedric had a loaded gun pointed to his head when he made a remark about Eric’s bruise just when he was standing behind him. He had to fight against Charles later and lost after only a couple of minutes. Charles had to almost carry him to the infirmary. I went to my private training sessions with Eric, like always. It’s almost funny that Eric treats me like every other initiate now during our training. He didn’t make any more comments about what happened between us, he didn’t even say something when I came to training after our fight. He only nodded and told me to run a few laps as a warm up. He didn’t mention my hair either, that now was a darker shade of brown, almost black, with blue streaks in it. After the comments about my tattoos, I was kind of expecting something from him about it.

I didn’t approach Eric about _it_ either - I just want to forget about what happened and pass initiation. The physical stage is almost over and after that it’s just another two weeks before I am finally and hopefully a new member of Dauntless. I could deal with anything like that later.

 

Right now, I lie in my bed in the dormitory and try to fall asleep. I am worn out from the fight this afternoon. Today was the last day of the first stage of initiation. Tomorrow night the rankings will be up and the day after that I’ll know if I’ll get cut. Objectively seen, the chance that I’ll get cut is relatively small. I’ve been ranked fifth for the last week. I lost a few fights, but I’ve also won two fights and my aim with the gun and the knives is almost perfect by now. Eric actually told me that I improved as well, and while I still avoid turning our conversation in the direction of … private matters, it was definitely nice to hear it from him. The last fight today was me against Charles. He is the best transfer and I knew from the beginning that I probably wouldn’t win that fight. I had been right. Nevertheless, the fight lasted quite a long time and Charles is pretty beat up, too. Gladly, this time I only needed some ice for my head and didn’t need to go to the infirmary again. I still hope that this won’t affect my rank too much. Even though I know that I don’t need to worry about it, I still do. I still want the representative job after initiation.

Tomorrow is visiting day. My family would be allowed to visit me here in Dauntless. I know, that my parents don’t approve my decision at all. My sister probably doesn’t, either. She’s three years older and everything proud Candor parents could wish for. She was always their favourite, doing what she was asked to do, always being honest. She never lied. And of course, when it was time for her aptitude test, she got the perfect Candor result, telling us proudly immediately when she came back from school that day. The next day, I was sitting in the middle of a big crowd of Candor members and clapped when she cut her hand and the small drop of blood hit the glass in the bowl. We once got along really well, but that was when we were only children. Later she got more and more annoyed by me and – of course – told me that. My ten year old self didn’t take that very well and it’s never been the same after that. She’d scold me when I did something wrong or wasn’t living up to the standards Candor and our parents set.

My little brother is different. He’s thirteen years old and he is probably the one member of my family who loves me for who I am. Since he was born, Tommy and I had a good relationship and I always felt that he would rather not see me fighting with Claire or our parents all the time. He’d always try to make us stop. I miss him, I realize. He admired me. I managed to push away almost any thoughts about my family since initiation started, but with visiting day taking place tomorrow, I am unable to not think about him. I wonder how he is doing, all alone with my parents. They love him, for he isn’t questioning them as much as I was, yet I think, when he gets older he will choose a different faction than Candor. Maybe he’ll choose Amity. I think it’d be a good choice for him.

I sigh. I don’t know if I want my family to visit me or not. I want to show them how well I fit in with Dauntless, show off my tattoos to them, but at the same time I fear what they might say to me. If only Tommy would come with them, I think then I would be able to bear their presence. I turn to my side in my bed and close my eyes. I just want to sleep and forget about tomorrow for a few more hours. Eventually, I manage to drift away.

 

I manage not to think about the possibility that my family might or might not visit me today until Eric asks me about it at the end of our training. We practiced longer than usual, since there was no more physical training. It doesn’t even make sense that we met today. I am not able to change my ranking now anyways, but I didn’t argue when Eric told me to come today.

“So, is your family going to visit you today?” Eric asks me. It’s the first time since the kiss he asked me anything personal and something that wasn’t him instructing me.

I shrug. “Dunno.”

“You shouldn’t worry about it.” Is he comforting me?

“I know.” I reply silently. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for them to visit me anyways.”

“Why?” Yeah, why did I just tell Eric that?

My voice is bitter when I answer. “I know why I left them, I don’t need to see them again to get my reasons confirmed.”

Eric frowns at me. “That bad in Candor? Can’t imagine why.” The sarcasm is thick in his voice.

I groan. “You have no idea.” I shake my head. “I don’t wanna talk about it.” I leave the arena and take my jacket that I put on the floor earlier. “Thanks… for the training, Eric.” I try to sound cool and relaxed, but my voice is slightly quavering. I didn’t forget what Eric did, but his training has proven to be useful. I meant what I just said and I quickly glance up to Eric’s face. He smirks at me, but I think it’s almost a _real_ smile.

“It was my pleasure, Cas.” I nod and leave the training room to take a shower.

 

Breakfast at the dining hall is a quiet affair this morning. A knot has formed in my stomach and I can barely eat anything. I don’t sit with Sky and Zora today, since they already spend their time with their families. I envy them for it. Their families love them and are grateful for their choice. Their parents don’t hate them for who they are. After breakfast and still with an empty stomach we wait in the dormitory. Alec and Jay are sitting on Jay’s bed, talking quietly with each other. Mia and Charles are cuddling and kissing occasionally, but most of the other transfers are just sitting on their beds and wait for it to be time to go down to the pit and meet or not meet our families. I lie on my bed with my eyes closed after I declined Alec’s and Jay’s offer to join them. I’m not in the mood for talking.

The door is suddenly slammed open and Eric, followed by Four, enters the room. I immediately stand up, like everyone else.

“You will now be able to see you families – if they actually care enough about you to visit you here, which I doubt.” Eric sneers. Four stands behind him with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“We will be watching you today. Remember, you’re Dauntless now. You’re not a dependent of your old faction anymore.” Four continues. “We take faction before blood very serious here in Dauntless. It’s best for you and your families not to seem too attached to them.”

They stay silent for a few moments and watch us. Eventually Four nods. “That’s all. You can leave now.”

They step aside from the door and let us pass. I am the last one to leave the dormitory, and after Four left the room just a moment ago, I am left with Eric.

“You’re okay?” Why does Eric keep asking personal things? He never did that before, he didn’t seem to care about it – until now. Again, I fail to read what he’s thinking.

“Of course I am.” I say, my voice being harsher than I intended it to be. I quickly look down and turn away from him. I don’t get a reply and I leave the dormitory. I catch up with Jay and Alec and we silently walk to the pit together. The knot in my stomach grows bigger and I consider hiding somewhere just to not even get the chance to see if my parents came. _Don’t be a coward, Cas! You’re in Dauntless now,_ I try to pep talk myself. I hold my head up high and straighten my posture. I can do this. This is probably the hardest thing I have to do during initiation, after this the second stage will be easy. I take one last deep breath and enter the pit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for subscribing and leaving kudos! I'd love some reviews - either here or message me on my tumblr (we-could-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com)! It'd mean the world to me xxx


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the next chapter! It's visting day!
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)  
> (side note: This is movie!Eric, for obvious reasons (JAI COURTNEY *-*)
> 
> Thank you to my awesome beta Keelie x

The pit is crowded with people wearing Dauntless black, mixed with some people wearing blue or the typical black and white Candor suits. Initiates are standing with their families, many of them hugging and laughing. Everyone seems so happy. I follow Jay and Alec through the crowd and it doesn’t take long until both of them find their families. I leave them be and enjoy their reunion. It seems like both their families know each other very well, too, and soon they are talking loudly with each other. I walk away from them. It’s clear that Jay’s and Alec’s families don’t hate them for their choice – I’d know by now if it’d be different. I suddenly wish I was already friends with them back in Candor. Then I’d probably know their families and could go with them, instead of hoping that my parents don’t show up here today.

I continue walking through the pit and I am taken by surprise when I see a woman and a man in Abnegation grey. They look extremely out of place and I wonder why they are here, since there are no transfers in my initiation class. But frankly, I don’t care. I shrug and keep walking.

“Cassandra!” A high-pitched and all too familiar voice calls from behind me. I groan internally and turn around to see my mother and my father standing a few feet away from me. I straighten my posture and slowly walk towards them. Tommy isn’t with them, but neither is my sister Claire, which is clearly a relief.

“Hi.” I say when I reach them. I don’t smile and they don’t either.

“This is not the way to great you parents, Cassandra. Don’t they teach you respect in this hell of a faction?” My mother scowls at me.

“Where’s Thomas?” I ask instead of answering her.

“He has school as you very well know.” Her eyes lose focus for just a split second, but I know what this means. She’s lying.

“He’s not. It’s visiting day, he could have come with you without any problems.”

“They are having an important project in class today, so it would have been extremely inconvenient for him to miss that.” My father supplies. He has always been better at covering his lies, but after being born in Candor and living with him for sixteen years, I know him better than he might guess.

“That’s a lie.” My voice is bitter. “I know he would have wanted to see me.”

“How would you even know?” My mother snaps at me. Oh, _she’s pissed._ “You’re not Candor anymore. You know nothing.”

“I know that I am not there anymore, but I am not stupid.” My father huffs at that and I glare at him. “Do you want to add something to that?”

“Thomas didn’t come, because you have a bad influence on him. It’s good he’s finally out of your reach.”

“Bad influence? Seriously?! He’s old enough to make decisions on his own! You have no right to keep him away from me!”

“We have every right!” My mother counters. “We are his parents.”

“Yeah, because that will keep him in Candor.” I reply sarcastically.

“Don’t speak to us like that!” Father scolds me and sends me a warning look.

Angers burns in my chest when I answer. “Why? What are you going to do about it? You have no say about my life anymore. I left you. You’re not my family anymore.” My face is hot and probably red. “I am glad that I left.”

Not missing a beat, mother replies. “So why did you lie about your test result? Why didn’t you just tell us straight up that you were going to choose _this_?” My mother sounds disgusted.

“Because it’s none of your fucking business.” I notice that I am shouting now. I don’t care. “And just for your information, I didn’t lie.” I let out a short laugh. “You out of everyone should know that. You, with your perfect Candor behaviour, can’t tell truth and lie from each other? That’s pathetic!” I can feel the eyes of the people around me on me and my family.

“You do not get to talk to us like that, young lady!” My father scolds me again.

I squint my eyes and glare at them. I don’t scream anymore, my voice is stern and silent. Threatening. “Don’t you remember? You have no authority over me anymore, I left you. Faction before blood. This is what I chose, Dauntless is my home now. You better be careful what you say to me.”

“Fine.” My mother spits out. “You made your choice. Don’t expect to see any of your _old_ family ever again.” With a sour voice she adds a moment later, “This is what we came to tell you in the first place anyway, Cassandra.”

I gulp and need to try hard to keep a neutral face. She tells me that I won’t be able to see Tommy again, not ever, at least not with their knowledge and agreement. “Fine.” I answer. “I’m guessing you still know the way out.” And with that I turn around and quickly leave the pit. The people around me stare at me, but I don’t look at them. At least they can be absolutely sure now, that I am no longer loyal to my former faction or my family. Four didn’t want us to look too attached to our families - I guess I succeeded with that. He is standing near the exit and when I get closer to him and the door he looks at me, almost worried. Frowning, he seems to ask me silently if I’m okay. With my lips pressed together I nod in his direction and receive an approving smile in return.

 

I end up on the bridge over the chasm. I lean against the railings and stare down at the flowing river. It’s strangely fascinating and calming. The roaring of the water is loud and pushes away any thoughts about my family. I welcome this feeling of freedom right now. I could just jump and I’d be gone forever. I don’t want to jump – I don’t even dare to consider it as an option at any point in my life - but that thought stays in my head. What happens after you’re dead, after you’re heart stops pumping blood through your veins and you minds stops thinking? Is it the end for you? Everyone will keep living their lives, day after day, but I’d be gone. I’d miss it - everything that happens after my death. The uncertainty scares me. I shake my head. I know that people have jumped in the chasm before to end their lives, voluntarily or by accident, and I know that it’ll happen again. Four told us the very first day. _What a warm welcome_ , I think bitterly and stand up straight again. I have the sudden urge to leave this place, where so many people have found their death.

But with every step that I leave the chasm behind, the memories of my meeting with my parents come back. No, I tell myself, not my parents, _Miranda and Christopher_. They are not my parents anymore. I know that I left them willingly and I don’t regret it for one single second, and I knew they’d hate me for my choice, my ‘treason’ to their faction, but I did not expect them to completely abandon me and forbid me to see my brother. A knot forms in my throat and I try to swallow it away. Breathing in, breathing out. The hallways are empty and I allow myself to lean against the cold stonewall and close my eyes. I allow myself one moment of weakness. A tear rolls down my cheek.

I failed. I let this get to me. I am supposed to be Dauntless now, something like this shouldn’t affect me like that and yet it does – because even though I made sure I was the one leaving, they made sure to leave me as well, specifically aimed to hurt me.

Suddenly, I hear someone laughing. I quickly open my eyes and find myself standing opposite to Mia, who is looking at me with a smug face. I wipe my tear away and glare at her. She is the last person I wanted to see me like that right now.

“Oh, Cassandra, do your parents hate you now?” Mia chirps arrogantly. “You poor, poor thing.”

“It’s none of your business.” I snap at her.

“Is it? Well, I don’t care. It’s nice to look at you, whose family just came by to tell you they hate you. It’s hilarious, you know.” She smirks at me, but I stay silent. I feel the heat rising in me. “Oh, you don’t think so?” She says after a while. “Try to see it from my point of view. You’re weak; you apparently didn’t even get Dauntless as your test result. You’re pretty much nothing. And yet here you are, crying your eyes out.”

That’s enough. I step forward and slap her. “Don’t you _eve_ r talk to me like this again, or-”

“Or _what_?”

I take her by surprise and punch her in the stomach. “Message clear?” I have her pressed against the wall and whisper in her ear.

“You’re forgetting that my rank is way above yours.” She attacks me and within second we’re both lying on the floor. She kneels above me and I struggle to free myself. I manage to hit Mia a few more times, but so does she. Our fight is interrupted, before it really started when Eric appears.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” He suddenly shouts and just a moment later he jerks Mia from on top of me. He offers me a hand and I take it. His hands are warm and not as rough as I’d imagined. He pulls me up roughly and once I stand, I quickly let go of his hand. Eric looks at us with anger written in his face. This isn’t good. After Mia, he is the next person I didn’t want to see me like that.

“You.” He turns to Mia. “Go back to your family or whatever. You’ll hear from me. And you-” He glares at me. “Come with me to my office.”

“But-” I try to protest but Eric interrupts me and grabs my arm,

“Now.”

Before we turn around, I can see Mia grinning at me. I hate her. Eric pulls me with him. His grip is forceful and hurts.

“Let go of me!” I snap at him. To my surprise, he stops walking and lets go of my arm.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He stares at me angrily and when I don’t provide an answer immediately he speaks again. “To my office then.” He commands and it’s clear that there is no room for arguments. I follow him silently - I’m tired of arguing anyway. Today had been too much for me. Eric confused me this morning with his sudden questions about me and my feelings, the stupid visiting day and now this. I wish I was alone right now.

We reach the Pire. Through the glass wall I can look down at the Pit and see the unusual splatter of colourful clothes. I turn away from the scenery and look at the floor. When we reach Eric’s office, he holds the door open for me and I step through. Eric follows and sits down behind his desk, facing me.

He gestures to the chair opposite of him. “Sit.” I do as he says. I notice that his voice has lost its edge. I wouldn’t say he sounds particularly kind, but I don’t think that it’s the leader who is talking to me right now.

“Why am I here?” I ask after a few minutes of silence.

“You know why you’re here.”

“Maybe I do. But then the question would be, why isn’t Mia?”

Eric doesn’t answer immediately. “Good point. Why did you attack her?”

“She provoked it.” I simply reply.

“Is this about your family?” Eric surprises me with that question and I wordlessly stare at him for a minute.

“That’s none of your business.” I eventually snap at him.

“It is ‘cause it’s visiting day and you’re an initiate. It’s important for us to see how you act around your families. Besides, it was hard not to hear you argument with your parents.”

“So?”

Again, he takes a while to speak again. “Did you cry?”

“What? No!” I lie. It’s a bad lie. This is probably why I got a Candor result in my aptitude test, I can’t even get out such a simple lie.

“Your make up tells otherwise.” Eric states simply.

“Fuck.” I mutter and quickly try to fix it with my sleeve. When I look back up, Eric is watching me.

“You look fine, no one will notice now.” I nod, thanking him with that gesture. “You can stay here for a while, if you don’t want to face your friends and their families.” Again I nod. Eric turns on his computer and stares at the screen, occasionally typing something. Eric has changed in the last week, since I punched him. Maybe he learned his lesson after all, although I still don’t understand his reasons.

“Why are you making me stay here, Eric, when you don’t want to punish me for punching Mia?”

“You’re Dauntless, I don’t need to punish you for some stupid fight.” He pauses and sighs. “It’s because I know how you’re feeling.”

“How would you know how I’m feeling?!” I snap at him without meaning to. “Sorry.” I mutter quietly.

He frowns at me and smirks. “You’re apologizing?”

“No. I take it back.”

“Fine. To answer your question, I had a similar fight with my family when I chose Dauntless.”

“You transferred?”

“Yeah, Erudite.”

I realize that this is the first time Eric tells me something personal about himself. But why now? I ask the next question without thinking about it any further.

“Why did you transfer?” I might as well take this chance – him telling me some personal things.

“I don’t really fit in with them.”

“I see.”

“Other than you, I guess?” He shoots me a questioning look. “You didn’t get Dauntless as a test result.”

“That’s none of your business.” I snarl.

“Yet you apparently told your parents about it, and you obviously despise them just as much as me. I think you got Candor, it’d fit.”

“That’s not true!” _Fuck._

“You didn’t get Candor?” Eric looks confused. “What did you get then?”

I stare at him for a moment. I’ve already lost. Almost whispering, I answer, “That’s not what I meant.” There a few people I hate as much as my parents at this moment, but Eric isn’t one of them. “I don’t want to talk about it. _Shut it._ ” I add quickly when Eric opens his mouth to say something.

Eric _grins_ at me. “Fine. You’re gonna stay here for a while.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I say so.”

“Great reason.”

“Got a problem, _initiate_?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Good.” Eric turns his attention back to the computer screen and begins typing. I am left with doing … nothing. Minutes pass and I lean back in the metal chair, my arms crossed in front of my chest. For the first half an hour I watch Eric work. He doesn’t speak with me, just works quietly. The only sounds I can hear are our breathing and his typing. I study his features – it distracts me from anything else and helps me pushing away all the unwanted thoughts about my family. I think I got pretty good with pushing things out of my head.

Eric’s eyes are focused on the screen. He wears his dark blonde hair short, almost shaven off completely on his sides. He has a bit of stubble today. His neck tattoos are nothing I’d ever do, but they kind of work for Eric – as well as his two piercings just above his eyebrow. He’s attractive, I can hardly deny that. I wonder if he knows that. He probably does, I am sure I am not the first girl to notice his good looks.

For a moment, I ask myself why I’m even thinking about that. I know I shouldn’t, he’s a leader and I’m an initiate. I almost sigh, but I don’t want me to catch his attention. I rather think about him than - I shake my head.

Distraction. Alright. Why did Eric take me here after my fight with Mia? He said he knows how I feel right now. Is that a legit reason to let him keep me in his office? He told me that it wasn’t a punishment, which alone is weird enough. He has every reason to punish me, I guess, and he probably would punish anyone else for the same behaviour. Eric’s behaviour is generally different than it was a week ago. Sure he’s still an asshole but he has his moments. Like, right now. He actually told me something about himself. I don’t know if I really expected Eric to be Dauntless born, I think I just assumed it because he is a leader. Letting someone from another faction being a leader in Dauntless at just eighteen just didn’t really make sense for me, and to be honest, I never actually thought about Eric’s origin.

I try to imagine him with blue clothes, less muscles and maybe a pair of those ridiculous glasses on his nose, studying in the library of Erudite headquarters. I fail completely. The thought itself - that Eric could be anything but Dauntless – is strange, ridiculous. I let out a short snort, which causes Eric to look at me questioning. I just shrug and smile innocently. After a moment I am once again left alone with my thoughts.

I spend my time thinking about Eric and trying to make sense of his behaviour. I fail. I realize that I might not want to come to a conclusion about it. What difference would it make if I knew an answer? I may not even like it. Eventually, I just stare at the digital clock on his desk and count the seconds between every minute. Like this, an hour passes by. My stomach grumbles, since I barely ate something during breakfast this morning and I hope Eric doesn’t hear it. I am in the middle of counting to sixty once again, when he suddenly interrupts me. The clock reads 12:14.

“I have a meeting during lunch with Max and the other leaders now, to finalize the rankings for tomorrow.” Eric states and looks at me expectantly.

“Okay.” I completely forgot that we would get our rankings tonight. I stand up and turn towards the door.

“If you want…” Eric speaks up again and I turn back around to face him.

“Want what?” I turn back around.

“You can stay here, if you’d rather not spend your time with your friends and their family members during lunch.” I think his tone is almost careful.

I stare at him with surprise. Not only did I already spent one or two hours at his office without doing much, now he provides me the perfect hiding place? “Why would you offer me that?” I ask warily.

“No one will be looking here for you and I know you well enough to know that you will accept my offer because of that. You don’t really seem to be a people-person.”

I swallow. He’s right. I am not someone who needs to be around people all the time and here in Dauntless and during initiation, that’s almost impossible for me. “I am hungry though.” I argue weakly.

“Here.” He opens a drawer and takes out a package of crackers. He tosses it in my direction, followed by a bottle of water. I easily catch both. “Stay or leave. It was only an offer.” And with that Eric grabs his jacket and some papers he has been working on for the last hour and leaves his office. I am alone.

 

I look around the office. It’s nothing special. There aren’t any personal belongings or decorations. The shelves are tidy and organized, as well as Eric’s desk. I put down the crackers and the water, go around the desk and flop down on Eric’s chair. It’s a lot more comfortable, it even rolls and spins and the backrest could lean back. I take the package of crackers and rip it open. The smell of cheese brings a smile to my face and I start eating them while I try to think of something to do with my time here. I eye the monitor on the desk and move close with the chair. I don’t have much to lose anyway and Eric won’t be back for probably an hour.

I move the mouse and the screen turns on. _Password required._ Of course, I should have known. Half-heartedly I type in his name and hit enter. _Wrong password. Two attempts left._ I sigh. That probably wasn’t even worth the try, yet I try another. They did say, ‘faction before blood’ is valued highly here. _Wrong password. One attempt left_. I don’t actually have any clue what his password could be and lean back again to eat another cracker. I don’t want to hit some kind of alert either. When I ate about half the package, I get up again and walk through his office.

Just because I didn’t get Erudite as my test result, doesn’t mean I am not a curious person, I think and open the top drawer of his desk. There’s nothing of interest in it, just some blank papers and a couple of pens. I close it and open the second drawer. If Eric didn’t want me to look through his stuff, he shouldn’t have left me in his office all alone, I think and scramble through the papers. There is a list of names, with two being crossed out. I read through it and realize that it’s a list of my initiation class. I recognize one of the names that are crossed out. It’s that Amity girl, that didn’t jump down into the net. She’s the reason why I was the last jumper; if she had jumped after me I wouldn’t have that stupid title… Well, she’s factionless now, and I can’t really blame her for not jumping, not when it took me so long to jump. I don’t remember the other name, but I am guessing that he didn’t make it into Dauntless either. Maybe he didn’t get on the train after the choosing ceremony.

I put the list back and take out the next couple of papers. I scan through them, but it’s nothing special, just some food orders, working schedules, and so on. There’s another small package of crackers.

The third drawer is locked. I turn and walk towards the shelf behind his desk. They are filled with folders with different labels. I randomly pull one out that says ‘initiation process’. The first few pages are the rankings from the past few years’ initiation classes. When I see Eric’s name, I am surprise about two things. He’s not ranked first, but instead Four is. I think I just automatically assumed that Eric would have ranked first, since he’s a leader and just kind of seems like someone who would. I am guessing that he wasn’t all that happy about only being second. The other thing that surprises me is that Eric is only three years older than I am. Sure, he does look young, but I didn’t know that he’s only nineteen. I guess that he’d be in his early twenties… Does that change anything though? Maybe… Three years isn’t such a big age gap.

Wait, no. I’m not supposed to think about him in that way. I flip to the next page and a small piece of paper falls out and lands on the floor. I quickly close the folder and put it back on the shelf, then I pick up the note. The handwriting is even and in cursive, it doesn’t look like I imagine Eric’s looks like. It looks more like a woman’s handwriting.

_“Be nice to her. Don’t do anything stupid.”_

That’s all. The paper looks like it’s been just carelessly pushed into a pocket. Who is ‘her’? Could it be… me? I frown. It’d be possible and maybe then this note would explain Eric’s change in behaviour towards me. _It could be anyone, Cas! Don’t be ridiculous._ I take a look at the clock on the desk. Eric’s been away for about half an hour now and I still have some crackers left. I take the note and fold it before I tuck it into the pocket of my pants. I sit back down on Eric’s chair, lean back and put my feet on his desk. I eat another cracker and relax. I yawn and close my eyes. I’m tired and eventually I drift off into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I am terribly sorry that it took my so long again. I finished my assignment for uni last Saturday, but I wasn't feeling well Sunday and Monday and thanks to migraine, turning on my laptop to write wasn't an option :/ And of course, once the chapter is finished it still needs editing and beta'ing.... I hope you understand that :)
> 
> I'll be at my parents for the next two weeks and I'll be at Hobbitcon during the eater weekend. I'll try to put up chapter 9 before that, but no promises - sorry
> 
> As always, I am really desperate for some comments and feedback, thoughts, anything. You can also hit me up at my tumblr we-could-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back! A lot has happened in the past three (!!!) weeks. I met Luke Evans and Sylvester McCoy in the meantime... Which is my excuse for the delay :D
> 
> You may notice that 'Convergent' is now part of a series ... I have ideas for a couple of one shots in this universe for other characters. So keep your eyes open :)
> 
> on another note: I come back after three weeks and see that this fic already has over 1000 hits?! THANK YOU GUYS!
> 
> As always, thank you to Keelie, my awesome beta, who is ever so patient with me xxx

I must have fallen asleep, because I only awake when someone clears his throat. I open my eyes to see Eric standing on the other side of his desk. I meet his gaze and raise my eyebrows.

“What? How long have you been standing there?” I suppress a yawn.

“Only a few moments.” His gaze shifts from my eyes to my feet and I suddenly remember that I am in his office, sitting in his chair and have my feet on his desk. Quickly I put my feet down and stand up.

“Sorry.” I mutter quietly, still looking at him.

Eric grins and nods. “I see you made yourself comfortable in my absence.”

“Well, what did you expect?” I ask sarcastically and cross my arms in front of my chest.

“I didn’t expect you to still be here.”

“I’ll leave you alone now, then.” Eric is standing next to the door and I try to get past him to open it, when his hand closes around my hand and stops me.

“I didn’t say you have to leave, Cas. I just didn’t expect you to accept my offer.”

“You said yourself, that you knew that I’d accept it, Eric.”

“But there’s always that possibility…” Eric is still holding my hand and I can feel it with every inch of my skin. “Which leads me to the question, why did you stay? You didn’t seem so happy about it earlier.” I don’t answer. “Come on, you can tell me. I told you my reasons as well.”

“No.”

“You got Candor as your test result - shouldn’t you tell me the truth then?” Eric asks mockingly.

“First of all, despite my test result, I am not Candor anymore. I left that behind and chose Dauntless. And secondly, Eric, I’m not lying to you, I’m just not telling you. There’s a difference.”

“I see.” His voice is quiet and I suddenly realize how close we are standing. His hand is still holding mine and our bodies are only a mere few inches away from each other. I can feel his breath on my skin and I now know that he still smells slightly like food. He tilts his head slightly forward, looking me in the eyes. “Will you tell me someday though?”

A weird feeling settles in my stomach and an involuntary shiver runs down my spine as Eric whispers that question. For a moment my gaze flickers to his lips, then back up to meet his eyes. “I…. Maybe I will.” I whisper back. We hold up the eye contact for minutes. My hand tickles with the sensation of his skin against mine. Eric smiles slightly and I know that if I move just a little, I could kiss him and I wouldn’t mind it. I notice how now Eric’s eyes drift down to my lips and subconsciously, I lick them. He moves his head forward and-

The door is slammed open and the moment is destroyed. Eric quickly lets go of my hand I immediately take a step back and look at the person. Only now she looks up and I recognize Ace. She looks from me to Eric for a moment and then grins at us.

“Did I interrupt something?”

“No!” I say a bit too quickly, while Eric replies at the same time, “Yes!” We stare at each other before we are interrupted by Ace once again.

She grins. “I can come back later.”

“No, no worries. I was about to leave anyways.” I look at him one last time and see him watching me closely. What have I done? I was about to kiss a _leader_. “Um, see you later then, I guess.” I say and push past Ace and leave the office. I close door behind me and slowly walk away. From behind the close doors I can hear Eric speaking.

“C’mon Ace, bad timing! … I finally managed to …” I don’t hear the rest of it and I don’t want to eavesdrop in case someone walks by. I may be Dauntless, but I’m not stupid. Still, I can’t suppress a smile when I walk through the Pire. Even though it‘s a point on the list of everything that I planned on _not_ doing during initiation – it’s actually nice to know that Eric apparently and contrary to my expectation sees more in me than my constant snapping at him. Maybe he does like me.

 

I decide to go back to the dormitory and wait there until it’s time for dinner. The room is not empty, which doesn’t surprise me. Not everyone’s family showed up here today. Nate and Dale are talking in one corner and I can see Kendall lying on her bed, probably sleeping. I sit down on my bed and lean against the cold wall. Successfully, I manage to push every thought out of my mind about my family and the rankings, that’ll be posted and close my eyes. Instead I still see Eric standing in front of me and his eyes looking at me, and then the angry and maybe disappointed look on his face when we were interrupted by Ace.

My heart flutters in my chest and I think, even though I know I shouldn’t, that I’ve fallen for Eric. I sigh. I can’t believe that of all people, I am attracted to cruel leader, and that said leader doesn’t seem to reject me either. If only Ace had come later or not at all. Eric was about to kiss me, and I know the thought shouldn’t make me as feel this way. I don’t even know him – how could I possibly let him into my life like that and know that I can trust him? I know the answer is simple: I can’t let him get close to me. I know, that if I let him I’ll get hurt sooner or later, that he’ll leave me, and probably even use advantage of his knowledge about me then. I’ve learned my lesson at fourteen, when I had this crush on this Candor boy and in my happiness over the fact that he seemed to like me back, told him pretty much everything about myself. He broke up with me after a few months and only a week later most of my classmates knew the most intimate facts about me and my family. I was crushed and I know now that I shouldn’t trust anyone that easily again. I made a promise to myself, to not let something like that happen again, not unless I was one hundred percent sure – which I wasn’t with Eric. I don’t even know how much longer I’ll be able to stay in Dauntless, I have no idea what the future holds for me.

 

“Where were you, Cas? We haven’t seen you around anymore after…” Jay immediately asks when I sit down at our usual table in the dining hall that we share with Sky, Zora, Nick and Alec. He doesn’t finish his sentence, but I know what he meant.

“I just needed some air, that’s all.”

“You didn’t leave the compound, did you?” Alec frowns at me. “You know we’re not allowed to do that without a member.”

“No, don’t worry.” I shake my head. “I just … walked around for a while. I wanted to be alone.” It’s not the complete truth, but I am not lying when I say this.

“We’re sorry about your family.” Zora adds. “You could have come to us and spend the time with us.”

So, everybody actually seems to know about my not so quiet argument with my parents. “Thanks, Zo, but as I said, I needed some time on my own.” I shrug. They didn’t have to know that I spent most of the time at Eric’s office.

“Are you guys nervous?” Nick eventually asks after a few moments of silence.

After that we’re all quiet for a couple of minutes and the reality sinks in that we’ll soon know our rankings, and that tomorrow, some of us might be leaving. Only tomorrow we’ll know how we rank against the Dauntless-born initiates and they’ve been training for this their entire lives now, and all we had was two and half weeks of physical training to get somewhere even remotely close to them. We talk a bit where we guess we are standing right now and Sky, who told us she was on top of the rankings for the last week, keeps sending us reassuring smiles and tells us to stop worrying. I know I shouldn’t worry about it, but I still do. We haven’t been told how many of us will have to leave tomorrow and be factionless. So, besides me probably being the upper half of the transfers ranking list, I don’t know for sure if I’ll stay.

When it’s time to go back to the dormitories, Sky hugs me and whispers in my ear. “I know where you were the whole day, and this time you’re gonna tell me all about him.” She smiles at me when she lets go and says louder to all of us. “We’re gonna celebrate tonight, so be at the pit after the rankings!”

“We don’t even know if there’s anything to celebrate yet, Sky!” Zora counters.

“Don’t be so pessimistic, of course there will be! And if not, then that’s also a valid reason to get drunk.”

Sky and Zora bicker for a bit while we leave the dining hall, but Jay, Alec and I are quiet until we reach our dormitory. Eric and Four are already waiting for us, behind them is standing a board, covered with a piece of fabric. A few minutes later, everyone is assembled and starring at our instructor expectantly.

 

Four clears his throat. “You will not know who will be cut after this stage. The final rankings will be up tomorrow after breakfast in the dining hall. Those of you, who did not make it, have to leave the compound immediately. You will be provided with a stack of clothes and some food, but then you’re on your own.” Four stops for a moment and watches us carefully. None of us says a word. “Only three of you will leave us tomorrow.”

“Only three? I thought more would be leaving!” Mia frowns at Four. Even I expected more having to leave.

“If you have a problem with that, initiate, you can pack you things now and leave.” Eric snarls at her. Mia only presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Good. These are your rankings.” With that Eric pulls down the fabric. Quickly I try to find my name and find it. I am ranked fifth. I let out a sigh. I am safe. With only three leaving tomorrow, I am in no danger. I scan the list again to see where Alec and Jay are standing.

  1.     Charles
  2.     Mia
  3.     Jane
  4.     Cedric
  5.     Cas
  6.     Jay
  7.     Alec
  8.     Nate
  9.     Kendall
  10.   Dale



They are just ranked behind me. We are all safe. I grin at them and am pulled into a hug by Jay. “Congrats.”

“I guess Sky was right. Time to celebrate.” Alec laughs and Jay and I join him.

We are not the only ones being relieved by the rankings. I can see Cedric and Jane smiling and congratulating each other, while Nate, Kendall and Dale don’t look very happy. They might all be leaving Dauntless tomorrow. Suddenly, I am glad that I never talked to them a lot and don’t know them that well. It’d only be harder if we were friends. Mia and Charles argue with each other but I tune their discussion out. It was clear from the start that they are the best transfers, and I know that Mia doesn’t like it at all, that her boyfriend is better than her.

Eric and Four talk quietly with each other for a moment and then Four leaves the dormitory. Eric follows him, but I see him glancing at me and I am almost sure he smiled at me. I nod in his direction and he disappears.

 

Half an hour later I enter the pit alone. I told Jay and Alec to go ahead and not wait for me, as I finally saw the chance in wearing the dress I bought during my first week in Dauntless. It’s a short, tight black dress that flatters my figure. I decided to wear a bit of make-up and let my hair fall lose over my back, instead of wearing in a bun, like I do most of the time due to the training. I actually feel pretty good and confident.

After a minute, I spot my friends and walk over to them. They are laughing and talking loudly and I see that I am not the only one who dressed up. Zora and Sky both wear nice dresses as well, although they are definitely more revealing than mine – I can see Zora’s big tattoo that covers most of her back. I greet them smiling and am immediately pulled into hugs.

“I told you not to worry!” Sky exclaims and laughs.

“I know, Sky. But I still did.” I shrug and hope that Sky forgot that she wanted to talk to me about my whereabouts this morning.

“And if I may say this, Cas,” Nick chimes in grinning, “You look absolutely stunning in that dress.” He sends me a suggestive look.

“Oh shut up!” I giggle and lightly punch his arm. I don’t talk to Nick that often - he’s closer to Jay and Alec – but we do get along quite well and I know that he doesn’t mean it like _that._

“Here, take a sip. It’s not a party, unless you drink a bit of alcohol.” Nick grins at me and I take the flask from him and drink a bit. The liquid burns in my throat and I must have pulled a face, since Zora starts laughing.

“Is this your first time drinking?”

“No.” I shake my head. “But in Candor that stuff isn’t that hard.” Jay and Alec nod in agreement.

“This is so much better though.” Jay says sloppily. He probably already drank a bit more.

Conversation flows easily. I find out that Sky is ranked first within the Dauntless-born initiates, as she predicted, and that Nick is ranked second while Zora is fifth. Somewhere in the pit music is playing and people are dancing and show fighting in different corners. I spot quite a few initiates around, some I know personally and some that are Dauntless born and I only know them because I saw them at Capture the flag. I even spot Four and Tris standing around with a few of their friends. Four has his arms slung around Tris’ shoulders. At some point I realize that I unconsciously searched the Pit for Eric. I don’t see him anywhere, not even Miles or Ace. I am not sure if I am disappointed that he won’t see me in my dress or if I am relieved that I can spend one evening without having to deal with him. The flask passes around us a few times and I feel how I get more light headed as the evening continues. Sky seems to really have forgotten about wanting to talk to me and I relax more and enjoy the rest of the night.

 

I sit at our usual table and stare at my plate. Two slices of toast are waiting for me to eat them, but I lost my appetite. My head is throbbing in pain and I feel a bit nauseous. Even though last night wasn’t the first time that I ever drank alcohol, it still was the first time that I really got drunk and now have to deal with a hangover. I push my plate aside and take a sip of my coffee. None of my friends comment about it, since they are just as hungover as I am, I guess. If anything, they drank more than I did. I am glad we don’t have any more physical training and the second stage won’t start until tomorrow. We don’t talk much and patiently wait for the final rankings to be announced.

When it’s time for the posting of the final rankings the dining hall is still full with almost every member of Dauntless, I’m guessing, and the room gets silent when Eric and Tris, as well as Four and Lauren, enter. I am barely listening to Eric’s short speech – something about being brave and doing our best, what I heard reminded me an awfully lot of the Dauntless manifesto. Finally, the rankings are revealed and for a few moments I forget my headache and cheer with my friends as we see that we all made it to the next stage, even though we already knew that. We don’t care right now and I am relieved to not have failed. I am a big step closer to becoming a true member of Dauntless.

I am ranked tenth. Sky and Nick are of course ranked first and second and I grin when I see that Mia is only ranked fifth, two ranks behind Charles. Alec is ranked the lowest of us with being number fourteen, but for now he’s save. Kendall and Dale both didn’t make it, as well as a guy from the Dauntless-born initiates. I know, I am not where I need to be to have the chance to become a faction ambassador but today I don’t want to think about it and I clap and laugh with everyone when two Dauntless-born climb on a table and spill their drinks on each other, cheering loudly.

 

It takes a few minutes until everyone calmed down a bit and my headache demands my attention once again. I leave the dining hall with my friends and the masses of Dauntless members, who are probably going to their workplaces now. I am glad that we have the day off, because right now, I just want to find a quiet place to sleep my hangover off.

“Cas! You’re coming with me!” Sky shouts then from a few feet next to me. “I know a perfect way to get rid of your headache.” I frown at her and want to argue, but she cuts me off. “No discussion. You’re coming with me. Not you, guys. Just Cas.” She says to Jay and Alec who intended to follow her as well. When I see her grin as she grabs my hand and pulls me along, I know this can’t mean anything good and it dawns to me that against my hopes, she did not forget about wanting to talk to me.

“C’mon, I just wanna sleep, Sky.” I whine from behind her.

“No chance.”

“We can still talk later.” I try again, hopelessly.

“You’ve been avoiding me about this for far too long now, Cas.”

“Is there any way to avoid you for just a little bit longer?”

“Nope.”

I groan in response and I can hear her giggling. We take some stairs and eventually reach the top of the staircase. Sky opens the door and after I blinked a few times and my eyes get used to the bright light, I find ourselves back on the rooftop where we jumped onto the first day of initiation. It already feels like that was ages ago.

“Are we even allowed to be here?”

“It’s part of the compound, so as long as we don’t jump on a train, we’re fine.”

“If you say so…” I shrug. The fresh air feels good and it’s nice to be outside again after so long. I try to remember when the last time was that I’ve been outside and I remember capture the flag. That must probably be it. I sigh and look for a place in the shadow. The bright light of the sun is hurting my eyes. Sky follows me and when we sit down on the floor she looks at me expectantly.

“What?” I ask and raise my eyebrows.

“Well, I know that you’ve been spending a lot of time with Eric lately.”

“How do you know about that?” I shoot back at her.

“I have connections.”

“Look, if you’re not telling me anything, I won’t tell you anything either.”

“Fine. You know my sister? Chelsea?” I shake my head. “Well, anyways, she’s friends with Eric. You do know Miles and Ace though, right?”

“Yeah, I do.” I groan. Sky laughs at that.

“I know how they can be, Cas, but they don’t mean anything by it. They are just teasing you.”

“I guessed that much.” I shrug and Sky keeps watching me. I sigh. “Alright. You can ask me about what you want to know, but if you tell anyone, you’ll pay for it! And if I find you told anything to Eric or his friends, you’re dead.” I stare at her for a while. “I’m serious. I don’t trust people easily.”

“I promise.” She says at last. “I won’t tell anyone or you can push me into the chasm.”

“Okay, deal.” I grin, but I am somewhat relieved about her response.

“You spent a lot of time with Eric recently.”

“Yes.”

“He gave you private training sessions?” I nod. “How did you manage to get him to do that?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just went to the training room before breakfast to practice and apparently, Eric has the same habit. So one morning he basically told me that he will give me that private training, no matter if I want to or not.”

“Just like that? Did he say why?”

I sigh. “Nope. Only, that he wants me to pass initiation. I’m not stupid, so I didn’t really mind the extra training. I needed it.”

“Eric’s never been a guy of many words from what I know.”

“Are you actually friends with him?” I frown.

“Not really. We know each other of course, since he’s so close friends with Chelsea.” She grins at me. “And since I’m neither deaf nor blind I notice a lot of things. Eric’s been talking a lot about you – basically since the first day of initiation.”

“Really?”

“Yep. What exactly is going on between you two? I know that you spent visiting day in his office.” Sky watches me carefully and I take a few minutes to think about my answer. I know, that I can’t lie to her. I am a terrible liar and I usually prefer to be honest anyways. That Candor test result didn’t come from nowhere after all. I look down at my hands. I never wanted to make a lot – if any – friends during initiation, but I already broke that resolution a few days into initiation. I never intended to tell anyone anything that personal again, yet Sky seems like someone I can trust. I know I’m usually good at judging someone’s character and if I am not terribly wrong about her, she really will keep this conversation secret. I take a deep breath.

“I don’t actually know. Eric is one of the few people that I constantly fail to read.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Look, in Candor, everyone knows pretty much everything about each other, and the things they don’t tell you, you learn by reading them – I mean, analyse their behaviour, their speech pattern, their expressions, their voice. By doing that you get a fairly good idea of their character and for example, when they are lying.” Sky nods. “Eric is behaving differently every time we see each other. At the beginning I was just one of the transfers, I don’t think he thought much of me, since I was the last jumper. I hated him from the first moment, because it was so obvious that he was just the cruel leader and the only reason that he didn’t hurt us in any way were these new rules.” I pause for a moment. It actually feels good to let everything out for once and share my thoughts with someone.

“But…?” Sky supplies.

I groan. “I think I am the only one of the initiates that ever snapped back at him – and got away with it. He brought me to the infirmary twice and helped me with training. I was the only one of the transfers he actually gave useful advice during the official training. So I came to the conclusion that he really wants me to make it through initiation, but I just don’t get why. All I do is provoking him. And then he-“ I gulp. “He kissed me.”

“HE WHAT?!” Sky gasps and stares at me with big eyes.

“Which is the story behind my bruised hand. I punched him after … I came to my senses. Punched him twice, by the way. And after that we barely ever talked about personal matters, although he still kept training me before breakfast.”

Sky continues to stare at me for a few more moments before she bursts out laughing. “Oh my, Cas.” She wipes tears from her eyes as she finally calms down. I just watch her the whole time. “So, did I get this right? Eric just kissed you and your response was to punch him? And you’re not factionless?”

“Apparently so.”

“Oh dear, what did you do to him? Even if I did this, there’d be serious consequences.”

“I told you – I don’t know, Sky. I can’t really figure it out. One minute he shouts at me and is a huge asshole because I’m twenty minutes late to training and the next minute he’s kissing me in a dark hallway.” Sky still giggles in amusement and I start to regret even telling her about it if that was her response.

“You actually managed to land a punch on him?” She sounds impressed.

I nod. “Twice. On different occasions.” A smile creeps on my face. Yeah, I really did manage to land a punch on one of the best Dauntless members.

“Oh, when was the other time?”

“The next morning. You noticed my hand then, remember?”

“Yeah. What did he do this time?”

“I think he wanted to talk about _it_. I didn’t want to and he made the mistake to touch me and call me by my full name. It was a reflex.” I try to defend myself.

“The more I get to know you, the more I like you, Cas.” Sky grins at me. “Eric deserves to be punched, but nevertheless, my dear Cas, he likes you.” She states.

I shake my head. “And why does he keep being an asshole to me?”

“Because that’s who Eric is. Besides, what about visiting day? From what I heard he wasn’t such an asshole then.”

“Well, what did you hear?” I squint my eyes at her. “Did your sister tell you?”

“Not exactly. They were just talking really loudly that afternoon when I came across them in a hallway near the infirmary. Eric was pretty angry about Ace interrupting you guys.”

“It was good she came into the office in that moment…” I mutter.

“C’mon Cas. What happened?”

“The short version? I wanted to be alone after the fight with my parents, Mia found me, I punched her and Eric had to pull her from me and made me go to his office with him. First some arguing, then he was actually kinda nice and offered me to stay in his office for the rest of the afternoon so I could be alone. I am actually not sure if he ordered me to stay or offered it to me… Anyway, I fell asleep, he woke me up later and kind of was about to kiss me I think? That’s when Ace came in.” Everything comes out in a rush and I sigh again. “I don’t know what came over me. If she hadn’t appeared, I definitely wouldn’t have punched Eric if he kissed me.” I admit silently.

“Cas, you’re in love with Eric! And he is with you!” Sky exclaims loudly and I shush her down. “Nobody’s here anyway.” She shrugs.

“It’s still no reason to scream like that.” I grumble. “Look, I don’t want this. I don’t want anything like that! I don’t even understand why this is even happening to me!”

“But why, Cas? Don’t you like him?”

“He’s an asshole.” I say and look down at my fiddling hands. This whole conversation is taking a turn that I don’t like but certainly should have expected.

“He is, but that’s not an answer to my question. Do you like him?”

“Well, I don’t want to like him, Sky. I didn’t even want to make friends during initiation, let alone have a relationship with someone.” I don’t even know if I really like Eric, in that way. I know that deep down, I don’t mind spending time with him, even if our meetings usually only contain of snapping at each other. I realize that I actually enjoy these conversations with him.

“But why?”

“I made the mistake to trust the wrong people and since then I don’t easily open up to them and … a lot of things are playing together there. I don’t want to talk about it…” I really don’t. She doesn’t need to know about my fear of people leaving me, of losing loved ones. Next to my obvious trust issues.

“So you think you can’t … trust Eric?” She asks slowly.

“I don’t know if I could trust him.” I correct her and think to myself, that if I fail initiation I’d have to leave him. “Look, I pretty much know nothing about him. He is my instructor and a leader of Dauntless – is it even allowed to be involved with a member as an initiate? It doesn’t matter anyway.” I answer my question before Sky can say anything.

“Cas, listen to me. I like you; you’re a really good friend. It’s obvious that there’s something going on between you and Eric – and I know that no matter what you did – it impresses Eric a lot. According to my sister and Ace and Miles, he never talked about anyone like this and so often. Are you really going pass up on this chance?” I nod slowly. “You’re just going to ignore it?”

Again, I nod. It’s something I realized during this conversation. I’ve gotten quite good at ignoring my feeling and pushing unwanted thoughts away from me and concentrate on the important things in my life. I just have to do it again now. I don’t need to come to the conclusion if I like Eric or not – I just have to ignore those thoughts and I’ll be fine, safe. I don’t need to think about the fact that yesterday, he was about to kiss me and that I would have kissed him back. I just have to draw the line here, just like I did with my past in Candor. I don’t think about it either, I even managed to push away almost every thought about my family.

“It’s working good enough for me so far.” I say and shrug.

“You know, this is not where I expected this conversation to go. I really wanted to give you dauntless dating advice and all that stuff!”

I can’t suppress a grin now. “I am sorry to disappoint you. I really am.”

“Sure you are.” She shakes her head slightly, faking disapproval. “But, should you, you know, change your mind about Eric-”

“You’ll be the first to know it.”

“Thank you.”

We sit in silence for another half an hour. It’s quiet up here, only the passing train every twenty minutes or so disturbs the silence. I am lost in my thoughts. I am surprised how Sky really seems to understand me or at least really respects my choices. I am used to stuffing everything in me. I never talk about my personal life and thoughts, so doing that now is surprisingly calming and relieving. I know I don’t hate Eric and it’s been weird between us. It’s something unexpected but at least now I know what to do about it now and I am glad that Sky didn’t try to push me to do things I don’t want to. Maybe she knows me better than I thought.

When it’s getting closer to noon and the shadow has almost disappeared from the roof, we decide to go back inside and search for a cooler and especially darker place. My headache is better now, but I am still not feeling perfectly well. Maybe I should be more careful about how much I drink the next time. When we part to go to our different dormitories, Sky gives me a long hug.

“Thanks for telling me. I’ve been dying of curiosity and not knowing after you kept running away from me for weeks!” She sighs dramatically.

“And here I feel, like you know more about all this than I do!” I grin. “Thanks for listening.” I say honestly.

“You’re welcome.”

I turn to leave, when she pulls me back around. “You know, in case you were wondering, I think – and I know I am not alone with this – that you and Eric would make an awesome couple.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a review? It'd mean the world to me x


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! I put a trigger warning in the notes at the end of this chapter. If you know you are triggered by something, please skip to the end just to be on the save side! (I don't want to spoil anyone who isn't triggered by anything. It's NOT Gore/Rape/Non-con)
> 
> The next thing - I AM TERRIBLY SORRY. I know it's been AGES since the last update for this series, but I have been incredibly busy. I got sick (twice) had three really hard exams and failed an important assignment. Basically, this semester was a shit one. I will also be incredibly busy during the summer break, making it not really a break :/ So I'm sorry to say that updates will be on a irregular basis for the next few months...
> 
> I hope I haven't lost too many people during the long break! I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know what your thoughts are :)
> 
> Thank you to my beta Keelie, who stuck with me even though it took me so long x

The next day is anything but exciting – as far as I can tell at this moment. Four picked us up in our dormitory earlier this morning and lead us to a dark hallway with a door on each side of it. No one told us what was going to happen, and not even the Dauntless-borns, who were already sitting on one side of the hallway, knew anything. And even if they knew anything, they clearly don’t intend on letting us in. We know that Four is behind one of the doors and Lauren behind the other one. They told us to wait until we’re called. That’s it.

There are hushed conversations and once in a while someone laughs or giggles. I am silent and keep to myself. Sky and Zora asked me a few questions and offered me to be part of their conversation this way, but I kindly declined. I am thinking about what might be waiting for us behind those doors and what stage two will consist of. The only thing I am relatively sure about is that it probably won’t be physical training again. The second stage is supposed to be primarily emotional, as I recall Four’s words on our first day of training. I have no idea what that means or in what way they are going to challenge us. Oh yes, they would challenge us, that I am sure about. Dauntless initiation isn’t supposed to be easy.

In that moment, one door opens and Four steps outside, looks around the initiates until he calls a name. “Nate, come on.” He nods towards the door and only a second later, Nate stands up and follows Four. The door closes with a thud. A minute later, Lauren steps out, calls a girl names Tessa and they both disappear again. We still don’t know what’s gonna happen and I watch the other initiates. I think, I notice that Nick is sitting closer to Zora than necessary. The two of them and Sky are currently laughing about something that I didn’t hear. I don’t know if there is anything going on between them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is something. After all, they’ve know each other for years now.

A clear opposite to their behaviour is the stiff and tense posture of Mia, who is sitting next to Charles. He is talking quietly with Cedric about something and has his back turned towards Mia, ignoring her completely. Mia’s face tells me that she is in no good mood and I nudge Jay in his side. I am still a curious person, even if I am not made for Erudite.

“Hey, what’s going on with Mia and Charles?”

Jay and Alec, who heard my question as well, both quickly glance over to them. “Oh, there’s trouble in paradise.” Alec says with a grin.

Jay adds whispering, “Yeah, Mia isn’t happy about being ranked several ranks below Charles and blames him for it.”

“That’s not really surprising… Did they break up?” I ask curiously but both shake their head.

“Not yet, as far as we are aware. But I am pretty sure that it won’t take long now.” Jay replies to my question and shrugs.

“I heard she’s already been looking around for someone new around the compound. Aiming high, as I was told.” Alec almost sounds impressed.

“What do you mean by that?” It’s not really any of my business, but we don’t have anything else to do either.

“We saw her talking to Eric yesterday after dinner. Seemed pretty close and all. They talked quietly though, so I don’t know what they were talking about. Could be nothing.”

“But, she _did_ touch his arm in the end. No one touches Eric without getting a serious beating, from what I know.”

I frown at Jay’s story and a sour taste forms in my mouth. What business did Mia have with Eric? But then I remember. Eric wanted to talk to her as well about our fight on visiting day. Although, that shouldn’t have taken two days and certainly doesn’t require touching each other like that. _Oh no_ , I think. _I am jealous._ I am not supposed to be jealous. After all, I just decided yesterday that I didn’t want anything to happen between me and Eric. Shit.

“But that’s only what I’ve heard. Rumours.”

“I see,” is all I say and in that moment, Four comes back out and calls Jane in. Nate didn’t come back and I assume that there is another door in the room. Zora is called in as well a few minutes later. I don’t know if we are called randomly, so I don’t know when it will be my turn.

 

I trail off with my thoughts. I remember the last day. Talking to Sky about pretty much everything that has been going on in my head had felt better than I thought. I usually am good with knowing who to trust and I have a good feeling about Sky. Especially her last words, that she thinks that me and Eric would make a good couple, managed to stick in my head.

And still, that didn’t keep me from hiding behind a corner, shortly after Sky and I parted to go to our dormitories. She had just turned around another corner and apparently bumped right into Eric and her sister, Chelsea. From what I heard in my hiding space, she interrupted them in the middle of a conversation and Eric was rather harsh to her, while her sister just laughed at Eric. I quickly left to get a nap and sleep off the hangover. I had just made the decision not to get anything started with Eric, because while I had a good feeling about her, I had to be honest to myself. I didn’t know Eric very well. The only personal thing he ever told me was that he was an Erudite transfer. Anyone could have told me that. He may be interested in me, but I definitely should have other priorities at the moment. I hated myself for getting distracted by him far too many times during stage one.

I entered the dormitory and found it empty. I noticed almost immediately that the beds of Kendall and Dale were empty and all their personal belongings were gone. They must have already left the compound and were living factionless now. I shook my head at that thought and pushed it away. I didn’t want to think about that at that moment and quickly walked over to my own bed and crawled under the covers.

After my nap I felt a lot better. The headache was almost gone and my stomach was fine again. I found my friends for an early dinner and spent the rest of the evening talking and joking. I had grown rather fond of them and had a lot of fun with them. I hoped that they would all make it through initiation. When we were all back at our dormitories Eric entered the room and we quickly assembled around him. I knew that his eyes were searching for mine, but I kept standing slightly behind Jay and Alec and looked at the wall behind him instead. I didn’t talk to him for over twenty-four hours, so I wouldn’t now or anytime soon either.

Eric spoke up after a moment, when he probably realized that he wouldn’t get to me. “Tomorrow, stage two starts. It focuses on your emotions. You’ll be picked up here at eight tomorrow morning. I recommend you get sleep, as long as you still can.” The last bit had a snarky undertone.

“What’s gonna happen in stage two?” Cedric asked.

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find that out.”

I heard someone grunt “Great…” and some started talking. I glanced up to see if Eric was still there and regretted it immediately. His eyes were solely focused on me and once he caught me watching him he sent me a frown. I turned away and pulled Jay with me, Alec following us to the back of the room, where our trunks were.

 

I am pulled out of my string of thoughts when Four steps out of his room again and calls Mia. She gets up and with her head held high she struts into the room – but not before she elegantly brushes her hand through her hair. Four sigh silently, before he closes the door behind them. I snort and shake my head at that sight and notice that I am not the only one who is amused by Mia’s attitude. Sky grins and Jay and Alec chuckle next to me. It’s not long before almost all of us initiates burst out laughing loudly. Even Charles can’t hide his smile. It takes a few minutes until we have all calmed down a bit and everyone takes up their conversations where that left off.

“Hey, Cas. We want to go get new tattoos and do a bit of shopping later on. You in?” Sky asks me.

I nod and grin. “Yeah, sure!”

“We’ll meet in the dining hall?”

Again I nod and we carry on a light conversation about what tattoos we want to get done. I have no concrete idea, but I think, this time I might get something on my back. I remember seeing a bird on the back of one of the tattoo artist, so maybe I’ll get something similar. It takes another forty-five minutes until it’s my turn. Four steps out of his room and calls me in. Slightly nervous I stand up and walk into the room. Four closes the door behind me and walks towards a desk and sits down. In the middle of the room is a chair that looks similar to the one I had to sit down only a few weeks ago, when I took the aptitude test. Four gestures me to sit down.

“What’s gonna happen?” I enquire. “Is it another aptitude test?”

“No.” Four replies shortly and types something in the computer.

“That’s not the answer I wanted.”

“I know.” He still doesn’t look at me and instead stand up and moves to a machine next to the hard metal chair I’m sitting on. He pulls out a small syringe with a long needle filled with an orange liquid.

“Cocky, aren’t you?” A tiny smirk forms on my lips and finally Four actually looks at me.

“I can say the same about you. I am surprised Eric didn’t kill you yet.”

“Yeah, surprisingly, I’m still here.”

Four huffs and taps the syringe a few times, then brushes my hair from my neck a bit too harsh.

“Ouch! Be gentle!”

“Stop whining, Cas.” I feel a sting in my neck and a cool burn. “The serum will go into effect in 60 seconds.”

“And what is the so called effect?”

“You’ll face your fears.”

“What?”

“The sim will end once your heartrate dropped down and you calmed down or faced your fear. Be brave.”

 

I don’t have time to reply. I blink and I am no longer in the same room as Four. I am not sitting on the cold metal chair in a dark room. Instead, the sun is shining, blending me and it takes a few moments for me to get used to the bright light.

I recognize my surroundings - after all I’ve just been here yesterday. I am on the roof we jumped onto from the train the very first day of initiation. I look around. The roof is empty, no one is here. I am confused. Why am I here? What the hell am I doing here? Again, I look around. It’s quiet. The only sound I can here is my heart and breathing and I feel a light breeze in my face. I start walking, and soon my feet carry me towards the edge of the roof. Below, a big black hole opens and I am only one feet away from falling into it.

My stomach clenches and a knot forms in my throat. It looks different, although I can’t pinpoint the exact thing that gives me this feeling. It’s dark. I am unable to see the ground and the darkness seems to creep out of it and slowly, like smoke, makes its way towards the sky, towards me. I shiver and I notice that the sun is gone. Dark clouds have formed at the sky and there is still no sound. I want to turn around, but I am unable to move. I can’t take my eyes of the hole. In a way it’s both fascinating and scary.

Suddenly and before I realize what happened, I feel something push against my back and I stumble.

I stumble towards the edge.

A scream escapes my mouth.

I cannot stop.

My next step only doesn’t touch the ground and I cry out again. In a quick and fast motion I pull my arms up and somehow manage to grab the edge of the building. A sharp pain in my arms tells me that I stopped my fall. My body slams against the hard stone wall and I wince in pain. I am gasping for air with my heart pumping louder than ever in my chest.

There is a hole underneath me, a gaping hole and I couldn’t see the ground earlier. It’s scary, and that is an underestimation. Once my fingertips lose their grip on the cold stones, there is nothing that will stop my fall.

I hate falling. No, I don’t just hate it. I would do everything to stop me from falling.

My arms hurt and my fingertips go numb from the growing cold. I know, I won’t last long. I am not strong enough.

“Help!” I cry out hoplessly. “Somebody help me!” But nobody is there, I remember. When I look up, there is nothing but the dark clouds. The wind picks up. “Help!” I shout again, hoping for rescue. “Please somebody help!”

At this point, I am desperate, scared, afraid. I don’t want to fall down. No, oh please, no. My left hand loses its grip. I try to get a better hold.

I fail. My fingers slip into nothingness.

But I don’t fall. A firm grip around my wrist saves me and I am dangling in the air, only held by a strong hand. The other hand long has lost its grip on the cold stone wall. I recognize the face the moment I look at it. Eric.

“Pull me up!” I plead, but he just smirks.

“Scared, _Cassandra_?” He spits the words out like he wants to poison me with them.

“No!” I don’t sound convincing. “Come on, pull me up!”

“Who do you think put you in this situation?”

“ERIC! Just fucking help me now!” My voice is pierced with anger, despair and fear. “Please!” I beg again. I’d do anything to make him help me.

He laughs. He laughs right in my face. “I pushed you, Cassandra, and now I will let you fall.”

“Wha- No! No, Eric! Please-”

It’s too late.

He lets go of my hand. And I fall. I fall into darkness.

His face gets smaller and smaller as I fall and his laughing drowns my scream.

 

There is no impact with the ground. The hard metal chair feels cold underneath me and it’s so loud in the room. So damn loud. Someone is screaming and I cover my ears with my hands. The noise doesn’t go away. It stays inside my head. My vision is blurred. Something wet touches my skin.

“Cas!” someone says. “Cas!” Again, someone calls my name. “It’s alright. It’s over.”

A blurred face shows up in front of me and I have to blink a few times before I finally recognize Four’s features. The screaming stops.

“Oh thank god, I thought I was going deaf!” Four says and looks at me expectantly. “It’s over. It was only a simulation, Cas.” I don’t say anything. His voice sounds muffled and slowly I lower my hands from my ears. “The first time is always the hardest. It’ll get better each time.”

“Each… time?” My voice doesn’t sound like my voice. It’s quiet and shaking as I speak. I don’t like it.

“Yeah. You’ll go through your fears each day for the next ten days.”

“Ten days?”

Four nods and eyes me carefully, turn around to his desk and hands me a white tissue. “I bet you don’t want to go around the Dauntless crying.”

“I’m not-” Four frowns at me and I touch my cheeks. Tears. I am crying. I barely cry, especially not in front of other people, and definitely not in front of people from Dauntless. I look down and take the tissue and quickly dry my tears and blow my nose.

“You can leave.” And I do.

 

It turns out there is a backdoor and that I don’t have to face the other initiates immediately. The hallways are dark and for a few exceptions mostly empty – just what I need. By now, my tears have dried and I am confident that no one can still see that I cried only a few minutes ago. I look calm on the outside. I know I do. If you want to survive in Candor you need to be able to look neutral and calm, if you don’t want your fellow faction members to literally know everything about you.

My mind is racing – in circles. I remember the scene, no the simulation, on the roof, every second of it and every time I reach the point where Eric lets go of my hand, my heart starts racing. I look into the faces of the people I walk past, but none of them is Eric. I try to think about something else. I don’t want to think about falling anymore. I can’t. As of now I am even more puzzled about how I managed to jump on my first day as a Dauntless initiate. I don’t know if I could do it again – not anytime soon, that much I am sure about. _So much for being brave_ , I think bitterly.

Then I remember, that I was supposed to meet Sky and my other friends at the dining hall. I don’t actually know how much time has passed since I got into the room with Four and I quickly turn around and head into the direction of the dining hall.

But I forgot one major thing, and I only realize it, when it’s right in front of me. Immediately, I recoil to the wall behind me, until I feel the cold stone pressing painfully against my back. The chasm, the roaring underground river, and the bridge across it with a reeling on only one side are right in front of me and I have to cross it to reach the dining hall.

 _No, no, no. I can’t_. I will fall again. Someone will push me and let me fall and this time there will be an impact. From where I stand it’s only a few feet to the chasm. Too close, for my liking.

I am incapable to move, to even make a step forward and attempt to cross the narrow bridge. I don’t know why I can’t. I am unable to make sense of my body’s behaviour. And on top of all that, I know, my calm façade has broken down. The people that walk past me, laughing and joking, all send me curious looks. None of them says anything, but I know they are judging me in this very moment. They will think I am crazy. They will think that I am not Dauntless enough.

“Hey, are you alright?” My heart skips a beat by the sudden and very close voice that interrupts me.

“W-what?” I manage to stutter and look up. In front me stands a tall brunette woman, frowning at me.

“You’re an initiate, aren’t you?” I nod slowly. “First day of second stage, huh?” Again, I nod. “Don’t worry, it will get better with time.” I frown. I heard that before, and I still don’t believe it. “Trust me.” _I don’t even know her_ , I think bitterly to myself.

“Oh and, if, you know, you feel like taking a longer walk, I’d advise you go back through this hallway and keep on the right side.” She smiles at me and walks away, and just like that I am left alone again, with my back still pressed against the cold stone wall.

 

 

It takes me approximately fifteen minutes longer to get to the dining hall, but thanks to that mysterious woman, I didn’t have to cross the chasm this time. A quiet voice in the back of my head whispers, _you are a coward, Cas!_ But I try to push it away. I am not very successful with that, but in this moment I am greeted with the noises of many voices in the dining hall. The loud noises manages to silence my thoughts and memories a bit. I take a deep breath and look around. It only takes me a minute to find my friends, who are sitting at our usual table, and I make my way towards them. Sky and Nick are talking loudly, joined by Alec and Jay. Zora is sitting next to them, but she is quiet and stares at her plate with a piece of untouched chocolate cake. Quietly I sit down next to Sky.

“Hey! There you are!” Jay greets me. “We were wondering what took you so long.” It’s not a question, but I do notice the questioning looks from my friends.

“I… I got held up. Sorry.” It’s not a lie.

“What happened after your sim?” Nick inquired.

I gulp. “I told you, I got held up.”

“But what did?” It’s Alec this time. His voice sounds mocking. “I know you’re hiding something.”

“Stop it, Alec! Don’t you notice that she doesn’t want to talk about it?” Zora suddenly cries out, lets her fork fall down on her plate and stands up. She stares at us with squinted eyes and then simply turns around and quickly leaves the dining hall. No one dares to say anything and no one looks at me. I don’t know why Zora did that, I never saw her act like this, but secretly, I am glad she jumped in. I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s none of their business and, to be honest to myself, I don’t want any additional voices to the one in my head, telling me that I am a coward. Not when it is about conquering our fears instead of running away from them – like I did. _Great_ , I think, _now I am thinking about that again. I need distraction._

“I’ll get myself some cake.” I say and stand up. It’s a good decision I realize when I walk towards the food line. I didn’t have any lunch today and my stomach is grumbling. Luckily, I get hold of the last slice of chocolate cake.

They are talking again when I sit back down next to Sky. Slowly I start eating my cake and listen to their conversation.

“… And then there were so many spiders and they all came towards me! From every direction and I had nowhere to go and then they touch me and crawled all over my body!” Sky tells animatedly. “Gosh, it was awful.” I see her shudder by the thought of it and I realize that they are talking about their simulations.

“Really? You’re that afraid of Spiders?” Jay frowns. “I didn’t think you’d be someone who’s afraid of those tiny animals.”

“Well, I am.” Sky exclaims and stares at him with a challenging look. “What are you afraid of then?”

“Fire.”

“Fire?” This time it’s Sky’s turn to frown. “Like candles?”

“As if, Sky. I mean more like being on fire, apparently. It was so surreal but at the same time it felt very real…”

“Yeah, you know, that’s kinda of a point of a simulation. Pretending it to be real, but not being real.” Alec says with a flat voice, dripping with sarcasm. All heads turn into his direction.

“You know, maybe you should have choses Erudite instead of Dauntless.” Jay nudges him in his side and laughs, joined by Alec.

“So what showed up in your sim?” Nick questions Alec.

“Uh, drowning.”

“Wow, that’s kinda boring isn’t it?”

Alec shrugs. “Yeah, kinda. I don’t even know where that comes from.”

“Hey, Cas, what was your fear?” All heads turn into my direction and a knot forms in my stomach.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I answer quietly. By now, my appetite is gone and I have stopped eating altogether.

“Oh come on, we all shared our first fears.”

I sound bitter this time. “Yeah, well, I didn’t ask you to.”

“What’s so bad about sharing? It’ll be good to talk about it!”

“I don’t want to share. It’s none of your fucking business!”

“But why?!”

“I said, no! Why won’t you just leave me the fuck alone?” I don’t give anyone a chance to reply, instead I jump up from my seat and before I know it, I am out of the dining hall, blindly storming through the dark hallways of the compound.

 

I am fuming with anger, I am angry about my friends and that they wouldn’t stop asking me about the simulation or where I’ve been. It’s personal, it’s no one’s business. They should know by now that I don’t just easily share anything about myself, and asking me to share my fears? I’ve only known them for a few weeks, who am I to trust them with that? Especially after they belittled the fears of each other. I don’t need that right now.

I am in Dauntless, the faction of the brave. Something like that shouldn’t be able to throw me off like that. I shouldn’t be scared to be near the chasm, I should be able to cross it without giving it so much thought. I am supposed to be brave, fearless. But I’m not. I am not brave. I am afraid of falling, but not only that I realize. I am afraid of being pushed, of being betrayed by-

Eric. He’s coming towards me. I hadn’t watched where I was going and only now that I see him I realize that I am close to the Pire – where Eric has his office. Hoping that he was only walking in the general direction and didn’t actually see me, I turn around and quickly walk in the opposite direction and take the first turn I reach.

Too late.

“Cas!” I hear Eric shout behind me. _Fuck_. I keep walking. “Cas!” He shouts again and his quick steps come closer. I walk faster. Then, without further notice his hand wraps around my wrist, stopping me. “Can we please talk about what happened?”

“Let go!” I cry out and try to free my hand from his firm grip. To my surprise, he immediately lets go of me.

“Cas – are you alright?” His voice is soft with a worried undertone.

“Of course, I am!” I snap back at him. I glance at his face, though I quickly look away again and stare at the wall behind him. He pushed me. He has no right to worry about me.

“Then, can we talk about what happened at my office?”

“No.” I want to be alone right now.

“No? Why?”

“Because I don’t want to.” He let me fall.

“That’s no reason!”

“Yes, it is! I said no, now leave me alone!” By now, I am screaming again. The people passing by give us concerning looks, but none of them intervenes. Of course not. No one would try to interfere with Eric.

“Oh, come on! Everything was okay back then-”

He doesn’t have the opportunity to finish. “Nothing is okay, Eric.” I spit out. “Nothing, okay?”

“But-” He tries again, but I cut him off.

“Why is it so hard for everyone on this fucking compound to understand that no means no?! Now leave me the fuck alone!” I’m almost running now

The memory of his expression when he let me hang of the building is still burned in my memory. His laughter, his voice, telling me that he pushed me. It echoes in my head over and over. No, I don’t know him. I cannot trust him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: (mild) Panic attack. If you want to skip the scene stop after she leaves the room after the fear simulation and start again after there is bigger gap between paragraphs. The scene isn't very long.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it! I'll try to update as soon as possible, though I can't say when exactly. Life is extremly stressful for me right now :/
> 
> Please consider leaving a comment with your thoughts on everything?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, it's here.
> 
> A big thank you to Keelie, my beta, for being awesome and waiting so patiently for my next chapters and gives awesome answers to my questions. 
> 
> And also a big, big shout out to my Azazel who let me bother her with all my questions about Convergent and who is great at giving me the advice and feedback I needed to get this chapter finished and even sparked some new ideas <3

I am standing in the dining hall. It’s completely empty, not a single person is in the room, not even behind the food counters. I’ve never seen the dining hall like this, empty and quiet. It’s something that’s hard to find within the Dauntless compound. I walk around the tables until I reach the table that I usually sit at with my friends. I stop in front of it, thinking about whether I should sit down or not. I don’t know where everyone is and I realize that I don’t even know why I am here. I look around. Nothing. I have a weird feeling in my stomach.

“Choose.” A voice suddenly says from somewhere behind me. Quickly I turn around but there is no one around.

“Choose.” The voice tells me again. I faintly recognize the voice from somewhere, but I cannot pinpoint from where I know it. I turn back around, facing the table. There are two baskets, one of them contains a hunk of cheese, while the other one contains a long and probably sharp knife. “Now.”

I don’t think and just grab the closest item – the knife. By now, I recall how this scene feels so very familiar. It’s the same set up as in the aptitude test I only took a few weeks ago, although it feels much longer. I made the same choice back then and I still remember what happened after I made my choice. I suddenly have a hard time breathing and my heart rate goes up.

_Shit_ , I think when I hear the snarling of a dog left of me. I was right; I realize when I turn around. The dog is large, with black eyes and big, sharp teeth. I can see them when the dog let’s out a loud bark. I jump back in shock and the grip around the knife in my hand loosens. My sudden movement must have set something off. The dog, no, it was more something like a beast, gets down, snarling at me. The knife falls down on the ground with a shattering noise. The dog jumps in my direction.

And I run.

I don’t get very far. That beast is fast and aggressive and deep inside, I know that I don’t stand a chance. As I run to the nearest wall, I look around in panic, but where the large, always open door is supposed to be, there is only a wall. No door.

I can’t escape.

There is only a table between me and the beast. I need to do something now, or the beast is on me. It jumps and I duck, quickly crawling under the table. I hear a muffled sound when the dog lands were I was standing only moments ago. On my hands and knees I crawl onwards, from table to table. Always a few feet behind me I hear the steps of the beast on the stone floor, its claws tapping loudly. I am sure it knows exactly where I am. I need a plan. But I can’t think of one.

My heart is thumping loudly in my chest and a drop of sweat slowly makes its way down my neck until it finds the collar of my shirt. The tapping on the floor has stopped, I suddenly notice and stop still. I look to my sides. The beast is nowhere to be seen.

Not until I feel a hot breath on my neck, sending a shiver down my spine and a shriek escapes my mouth. Faster than I thought possible for me, I crawl out of my hiding spot and onto another table. I am looking down at the beast, but I am sure it won’t be for long. The dog comes closer to me and when it reaches the table, it jumps onto it - making me move to the end of it that’s pointing to the wall.

It lets out a loud bark in my direction, flashing his teeth at me. A tear rolls down my cheeks. I am scared. I am scared and I want it to end. Right. Now.

It clicks in my head. I am Dauntless. I _chose_ to be Dauntless! I am not supposed to be afraid. I am supposed to be fearless, to be brave. But I am not.

I know, because when the beast make a step forward and barks at me again, I flinch and the tears won’t stop rolling down my face. I need to be brave. I chose Dauntless. I am brave.

I made a decision. I take a deep breath and when the beast, the dog, makes another step in my direction, instead of stepping backwards, I make a step forwards. And when the dog barks at me, I scream as loud as I can. I scream until my throat hurts and everything turns black.

 

When I open my eyes I almost immediately meet Four’s gaze. He looks impressed and nods at me, then he turns back to a computer and typed something, my results probably. I quickly use the sleeve of my jacket to wipe away the still wet tears on my face, before Four would see them again and possibly would make a comment on it. I feel like I can still hear the dog growling in my ears and I shudder.

“Only took you thirteen minutes and nineteen seconds this time. You improved by almost three minutes.” Four turns back to me and sends me the tiniest of smiles.

“Great.” I say dryly, not knowing what else to reply.

“It’s pretty average, but if you keep going like this you’ll soon be climbing up a few ranks.” I only nod. I know that. “You faced your fear in an impressive way, and that for the second time.”

“What?” I stare blankly at him, confused for a moment.

“It was the same scene as in the aptitude test, wasn’t it? You’d have to fight the dog to get a Dauntless result.” Interesting. We are not supposed to talk about the test - not that many of my old faction cared about that.

I frown at him. “You do realize that no one ever said that I had a Dauntless result, right?” I get up from my chair and turn to leave.

“What did you get as your result?” He asks me curiously.

“I’m not Candor anymore, so fuck off. It’s no one’s business.” I am out of the backdoor without giving Four a chance to reply.

 

I take a longer way back to the dormitory, avoiding the small bridge above the chasm but still fearing a big black dog behind every corner. I try to tell myself that there is no possibility of a dog being in Dauntless, and yet… What the hell are they doing to us? I wander through the hallways of the compound to avoid being face to face with any of my friends or fellow initiates. When I find myself back in the dormitory it’s lunch time and to my luck the room is empty again. I decide to skip a meal, remembering that the dining hall is the place where the dog tried to kill me. Maybe I am a coward right now, but frankly I couldn’t care less right now. I want to sleep. Thanks to the burning image of Eric letting me fall into the abyss that repeated itself over and over in my dreams last night, I am tired to the bone.

I don’t fall asleep for a long time, partly because I am still too shaken from my last fear simulation and partly because I fear that my fears will only haunt me in my dreams. Eventually I am starting to discuss if I’d rather have Eric push me down into the dark hole or a beast of a dog trying to eat me.

I’d choose the dog anytime over Eric.

 

I must have fallen asleep at some point because eventually I am awakened by Jay gently shaking my shoulder. I crack my eyes open, surprised that I had a dreamless portion of sleep and annoyed that it was disturbed.

“What?” I groan and stare at them through my half open eyes.

“It’s time for dinner, Cas. We didn’t see you during lunch so we thought… you might be hungry.” Alec says hesitantly.

Right. Dinner. My stomach is growling and I know I should be eating something. I ate next to nothing this morning and nothing for lunch. There will be people in the dining hall, but no dogs, I tell myself. I am brave, I need to be brave.

I sit up and look at them. It’s the first time since yesterday evening that I talk to either of them. “Um, sure, okay.” I don’t thank them for thinking of me, nor do I apologize. During our walk to the dining hall we keep quiet. They don’t say anything when I lead them through the longer path that doesn’t cross the chasm. During dinner I don’t speak much either. Instead I watch my friends, while I just push my potatoes from one side of the plate to the other.

Zora is absent, Sky said that she’s not hungry, but nothing more. I haven’t seen her since last night. When I got to the hallway, where we’re waiting to be called in for our simulations, she had already been called in. Nick and Sky are sitting opposite of me. While Nick stuffs his food in his mouth without even really pausing to breathe, Sky barely eats anything. Jay and Alec are sitting next to me and talking quietly with each other. Jay’s plate is almost empty, but I notice that Alec’s food is untouched. Alec looks worried and only cracks a small smile when Jay whispers something him and pushes his plate with a piece of chocolate cake in Alec’s direction.

No one talks to me, no one asks me anything and no one questions me about my fear. I am content with that. I want to forget what I lived through, but instead a picture of the dog flashing his teeth at me flashes before my eyes and I flinch. Just as fast as the picture appeared, it vanishes and I see Nick watching me from across the table. He opens his mouth, as if he wants to say something.

“Don’t.” I say harshly and glare at him.

It works and Nick turns back to his food. Our little exchange hadn’t gone unnoticed by Sky. She frowns at me.

“What?” I snap at her.

“Nothing.”

“Good.” And with that it’s quiet again and I try to eat some more. The potatoes and the chicken have gone cold by now and disgusted I push my plate away. I am not hungry anymore anyways. Jay and Alec look up when I stand up from the table and nod in my direction.

On my way out of the dining hall, I pass the exact table that I confronted the dog earlier and again, a shudder runs down my spine. I can still hear him barking at me, I hear his claws tapping on the floor from behind me, from next to me, from everywhere. I feel haunted. But I don’t see anything. There is no dog – and yet I jump when I feel the hot breath on my neck, just to see that it was another Dauntless member that tried to get past me. I almost run out of the dining hall and take the first empty hallway I pass. I lean against the cold stone wall and slide down to the floor until I sit on the floor with my head between my knees.

I need to calm down. It’s not real. There are no dogs in Dauntless, nothing is chasing me. _Calm down, Cas!_ I scream in my head. I focus on my breathing, in and out. “It was just in a simulation,” I whisper to myself.

I fail to fully convince myself, but eventually I get up. There was no sense sitting here.

I brush off the dirt from my pants and straighten my jacket. I look around one last time, take a deep breath and turn around the corner just to immediately bump into someone. Well, I wish it was just _someone_ , but I don’t seem to have any luck at all and find myself face to face with Eric and way too close, too, for my liking. He’s holding me with his hands on my upper arms and when he notices that I try to wriggle out of his grip, he quickly let’s go of me. He looks at me with his usual stern expression, although I think I can see a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Shit, Eric! Don’t do that!” I snap at him frustrated and take a step back.

“Do what exactly?” He asks irritated. “ _You_ ran into me.”

“Because you stood in my way!”

“You have eyes yourself!” He snaps back at me.

“Glad we have that settled. You’re still standing in my way though.”

“Yes.”

“I am really not in the mood for your fucked up games, Eric.” I grunt at him. “Now, let me through!” I try to get past him, but he holds me back by grabbing my wrist. The moment feels awfully familiar, only that this time I definitely have no intention of kissing him.

“Let go of me, Eric!” I hiss.

“Tell me what’s going on with you.” He voice is low and threatening.

“No.”

“You seemed a bit… _off_ during dinner.”

“So what? It’s none of your business.” He’s still holding on to me, but with a twist of my arm I can free myself.

“It’s stage two of initiation.”

“Smartass.”

“You’re avoiding me.”

“Yes.” I answer shortly and stare at him, my arms crossed in front of my chest.

He still doesn’t move and just _stares_ at me. I am done wasting my time with him and when I speak again, my voice is strong. “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t want to be near you, I don’t want you to touch me or even talk to me. Fuck off, Eric. Leave me alone!” I spit at him and watch his expression change from irritated to stunned to angry. “And stop following me around!”

After a moment, Eric steps aside, finally out of my way. “Whatever. _I don’t care_.” That’s it. He is no longer Eric, the guy that invited me into his office on visiting day. He was Eric, the Dauntless leader. “Be more careful the next time, initiate, or it will have consequences!” He adds, but I push past him and turn my back to him before he even finished the sentence and storm off.

 

I slept for maybe an hour last night, thanks to Eric pushing me into the abyss after being chased by the giant dog. I was wide awake by midnight. So when I step into the sim room it takes me a few more moments to notice that Four is not the only one waiting in the room. On a chair next to Four is Tris.

“What’s she doing here?” I ask yawning as I sit down on the metal chair.

“Leadership is supervising some of the simulations, it’s routine.” Four answers while he prepares the serum.

“Hmm,” is all I say, having to yawn again.

Four pushes my hair aside and carefully injects me with the serum. Another fear. I can only hope that this one won’t be as bad as the others. I hear a faint voice telling me good luck, then I drift off.

 

Sleep doesn’t come, but I am not tired either. The surroundings are familiar and I find myself back in my old room, in my old home in Candor. The walls are painted in a stainless white, the furniture is strictly held in black and white – all shiny and without a hint of dust on any surface. All my shelves and cupboards are either open or have glass doors. Through my window I see that it’s dark outside. Why am I here? What the hell am I doing in Candor when I am supposed to be in Dauntless, my new faction and my new home?

I sit down on my bed. I don’t leave my room – the possibility of running into my sister or my parents is too high. It’s quiet in the apartment.

The light flickers for a few minutes and I watch it carefully and a bad feeling settles in my stomach. A thunder suddenly roars outside and I jump when the light goes out and I am surrounded by darkness. _Oh no._

I thought I was over this. I thought I grew out of it. It’s been so long since I witnessed the last thunderstorm.

When the lighting lights up my room only a few seconds later, I am already in my bed and pull the covers over my head. _This can’t be happening again_. Raindrops start falling against the window and the wind is howling outside. The next thunder is even louder than the first one, making me shiver and whimper. I feel like a child again, like my seven year old self.

I remember what Claire used to do back then, when she was also just a kid. She would laugh at me now, but back then she’d crawl under the covers with me and she’d hold me and she would tell me something that happened to her at school. It didn’t matter what it was about, but as long as it distracted me it worked. Claire is not here right now, though.

I shriek when the next thunder comes and curl up, hugging my knees close to my chest. Distraction. I need something to distract me. I close my eyes and try to think of something that makes me happy. I remember me and Sky sitting on the rooftop, completely hungover from the celebration the night before, but happy.

Another thunder. Something crashes against the window with a loud bang, then it’s just the raindrops again, in an angry rhythm. Tears are rolling down my face and my heart rate goes up again.

Sky. She is my friend. I know I can trust her. I see her in front of me, how she looked so incredibly shocked when I told her about- No. I interrupt myself. When we talked and laughed together. I remember how I promised her that she’d be the first I’d tell anything.

Thunder. The storm must be right above our home. This time, there are no new tears.

Jay and Alec – they are always so cheerful, always sticking with one another and thinking of me, even though I snapped at them.

Oh no, I’ve been a terrible friend. I didn’t plan to make any friends, I am not a naturally friendly person, hell no. I am not from Amity. I don’t like to apologize. It’s not their fault I feel like shit. I need to talk to them. I need to-

 

“Cas?” My thoughts are interrupted and I open my eyes abruptly. I immediately meet Four’s eyes.

“What? Is it already over?” It worked, I think to myself. For the first time after waking up from a simulation, I don’t feel absolutely terrible.

“Yes, you did really good in there.” Tris chimes in. I had already forgotten that’s she’s in the room as well.

“What’s my time?” I remember to ask.

Four types something in the computer. “Eleven minutes and sixteen seconds.” He nods at me approvingly. “Seems like you’re getting the hang of it.”

I only nod. I doubt that. I was only lucky I am already familiar with that specific scenario.

 

I sleep until lunch. I had found the net again – completely deserted – and pulled myself up. My dreams were filled with childhood memories, of me with Claire and some of them with Tommy. My parents even made an appearance, but it wasn’t a nice one. I woke up a few hours later, still tired but awake enough to function and to remember that I wanted to join my friends.

They are already sitting at our usual table and it’s almost the same atmosphere as last night – except this time I greet them with a forced smile when I sit down with my plate. Immediately all looks are on me. Zora isn’t present again.

“Well, welcome back, Cas.” Sky grins at me.

“I wasn’t even gone.” I reply, although I know what she means.

“We are glad you’re here and talking anyways.” Jay says.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just keep eating.” I try to dismiss him.

I notice Sky watching me carefully and raise my eyebrow. “What?”

“You look like shit.” She eventually says after a couple of moments.

“Why, thank you.” My voice is bitter and dripping with sarcasm.

“Did you even get any sleep at all? You look like you didn’t.”

“Not much… My sleep schedule is all fucked up thanks to … to the sims.” I add slowly, staring at my food instead of at Sky.

“Are you doing okay?” Nick asks. “We’ve been worrying about you, you know.”

“I am doing alright.” I answer quietly. “I have my own way of dealing with it.” Well, I don’t know if my behaviour actually counts as dealing with my fears, but it’s the best I could do.

“We are all in this together, Cas, so if you need anything…”

_Be nice_ , I remind myself. “I know. I am just… I don’t like to share.” I stutter.

I am surprise when they answer. “Okay.” That’s it. They accept it. And easily like that we move on to another conversation.

“So why were the leaders watching over our simulations today?” Alec asks curiously. “I thought they’d only supervise the first stage and the final test?”

“Four said, it’s routine.” I shrug. “Why shouldn’t they supervise the second stage?”

“It’s not routine.” Nick counters, while Sky is nodding next to him.

“Never did that before.” She adds. “Until a few years ago, leadership didn’t even care to watch anything the initiates did except for the final test.”

“Really? And why are they doing it now?” Alec sits a bit straighter now.

Nick shrugs. “I’ve heard some rumours…”

“What rumours?”

Nick turns to Sky. “Haven’t you noticed that through the past years, on a frequent basis people from Erudite would come to our compound?”

“Um, no?”

“Well, I have. I’ve only heard bits and pieces, of course, but some people say they are searching for Divergents.”

“You honestly believe they exist?” I inquire and look around at my friends’ faces. The thought sounds ridiculous to me. We take a test and the test tells us our aptitude. How can one person even have more than one? Hell, the test was created by Erudite, therefore it probably isn’t even possible to have an aptitude for more factions. But Nick nods, Sky shrugs and Jay and Alec looks somehow… off. I can’t pinpoint it exactly, but when they notice my look, they both just shrug again. Oh, well. I know I am not Divergent, the stupid test clearly told me I belonged to fucking Candor. “And how exactly do they find out whether someone is a Divergent?”

“Now that is beyond my knowledge. There is a reason I am in Dauntless and not in Erudite.” Nick laughs and soon we all join in.

Conversation flows easily now, although everyone avoids anything that has to do with initiation and the fear simulations. They tell me that Mia and Charles have finally broken up and that since then Mia tries to her luck with various Dauntless men, although not very successful. Sky shows me her new tattoo, a blue bird on her ribs, and Alec is thinking out loud whether he should get pierced. When Sky makes a pretty blunt suggestion, Alec face turns into a deep red while the rest of us are laughing.

It’s not until it gets quieter in the dining hall that I feel uneasy again. I’ve been here long enough to know that I don’t need to turn around to know that at least some of the leaders had just entered the dining hall. I try to make myself smaller. With my luck Eric is one of them and after yesterday’s … argument with him, I definitely do not want to see him.

Of course they had to pass our table after they got their food, and _of course_ , walking behind Tris and Max, is Eric. I immediately tense up. Hopefully he hasn’t noticed me.

My string of luck must have ripped after my simulation earlier, because they sit down only a few tables next to us, Eric sitting exactly in my line of sight. Not a second after they placed their trays on the table, Eric head flies up and his eyes find mine straight away.

If looks could kill, I’d be dead now. He is Eric how I first got to know him – the cruel leader that hates everyone and is hated by equally as many people. I do my best to imitate his look and we hold eye contact for a few seconds, until he quickly turns away and says something to Max.

I want to puke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and still being here with me! I hope you liked it :)
> 
> For me, this is one of the more critical chapters in terms of character and relationship development. Therefore I am DYING for some feedback, either here or as a message via my tumblr (we-could-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com).


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM OFFICIALLY BACK!  
> I know, it's been like 3 months (oops v.v), I had a shit ton to do for uni. I mean, over my summer break alone, I wrote about 30-40k words - just for my assignments for uni.
> 
> BUT. NaNoWriMo was last month, and even though I spent each day studying for my exams in November, I somehow managed to still participate and in the end: WIN! The result is that I wrote an additional 50k+ words for Convergent and have a lot of back up chapters done now. And this means: REGULAR, probably WEEKLY UPDATES from now on as I continue to write more and edit everything! Pretty awesome, right?
> 
> And at last: Thank you to my beta Keelie for still being my beta after my 3 months hiatus. I am incredibly thankful for this <3  
> And another shoutout to my Azazel for letting me send you bits and pieces of what I am was currently working on and giving me your thoughts <3

I am still starring at Eric when Jay interrupts me. “Are you alright?” He asks me. “You look kinda sick.”

Oh, how right he is. “I am fine.” I answer briefly and look back to Jay, as if to prove that I really am fine. But not just Jay, but all my friends had noticed that I was staring somewhere and their head spin in the direction I have been looking. It only takes a moment for them to find where I was looking.

“Did Eric do something to you? I thought Tris was the leader watching your sim?”

“It’s nothing.” Jay raises an eyebrow in my direction. “I swear.” I add. It’s none of their business. When I turn back to my food, I catch Sky watching me carefully. It’s obvious that she knows it isn’t nothing and I hope that she also knows that I don’t want to talk about it. I send her a pleading look, hoping that she’d understand my silent cry for her help. I had promised myself not to be more mean to my friends than needed, but if they ask me one more question-

“So, Alec, when do you plan to get your piercing?” Sky asks in this very moment. Relieved I let go the breath I’ve been holding subconsciously. “I’ve been thinking about getting a few more piercings in my ears.”

Gladly, I take this chance to drive the attention away from me. “You only just got that new tattoo, Sky! And you want to get pierced again already?”

“Sure, why not?” She grins at me. “You should come with me. I think you could use a bit more metal as well, honey.” I raise my eyebrow at my new nickname, but she continues without taking notice. “I was thinking, maybe the lip? What do you think?”

“Nah, no way. I was more thinking about ears?”

“Is that a question? Are you copying my ideas?” Sky asks in a mocking tone.

“I wouldn’t dare, _darling.”_

 

That night, I sink into my bed with my bellybutton pierced and a new stud in my ear, matching the one Sky got. She kept my mind off Eric the rest of the evening and not once asked about him. Never has I thought I would make friends here in Dauntless and frankly, never would I had thought to find a best friend that I would get matching piercings with. A friend, that I have learned, I can trust. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without her here in Dauntless. And even though I know, that I won’t be able to sleep for very long and that I’ll probably dream of Eric again, I fall asleep with a smile on my lips.

 

Two days later, I open my eyes, breathing in as much as air as I can only interrupted by a few coughs. Drowning. It’s new. I never worried about drowning, I can’t even think about a situation where I would be able to drown. My thoughts are interrupted by Four.

“Ten minutes and thirty-four seconds.” He says neutrally. I nod. I really am improving. And this time, there aren’t even tears rolling down my cheeks and even though I am shaking, it’s not as bad as it usually is.

“Well done, Cas.” Tris says to me from her chair in the corner.

I nod once. “Thanks.”

“If you keep going like that you’ll stay in the top five until the end of initiation.”

My head abruptly turns to Four. “ _Stay_ in the top five?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yeah, haven’t you seen the rankings?” I shake my head. No, I haven’t. I haven’t been in the training room for days, and to be completely honest, I hadn’t even thought about the rankings the last few days. There just has been too much going on with the sims and … Eric.

Four only nods and turns back to the computer to type in my result. I take that as a sign and leave the room. A small smile forms on my lips. I fought against my fear of drowning, have good time and am apparently one of the top five initiates at the moment. I walk through the dark hallways of Dauntless until I am in the training room, standing in front of the board with our rankings on.

Even though I only just finished my last sim, my result is already updated electronically. I am indeed ranked fifth. There is only a small difference of a few seconds to the ranking below mine and a slightly bigger one of fifty-eight second to the one above me, but that doesn’t wipe of the smile on my face. Yesterday, I was fighting my fear of failing initiation, and today I am ranked fifth within all initiates. I scan the rankings of the others and see that Mia and Charles are both ranked first and second, Sky is actually on number four and I am more surprised to see Alec ranked third. I didn’t know he did so well in the simulations. Nick is ranked eighth and Jay is ninth, while I am shocked to see Zora being ranked fifteenth out of all seventeen initiates. Jane, who was one of the best during stage one, is now ranked even below Zora.

And I moved up five rankings since the final rankings of stage one.

I can do it, I realize. I am gonna be able to become an ambassador for Dauntless. I am not going to become factionless.

 

When I see my friends later, I don’t hesitate much, before I declare, “We should get wasted tonight and celebrate!” I grin into the group that is sitting around the table in the dining hall. I am met with frowns and confused looks.

“Why?” Sky laughs. “What’s going on?

“Do we need a reason? Let’s just get drunk and have a bit of fun for a change!” I look at them expectantly. “C’mon guys, we’re Dauntless, aren’t we supposed to have fun?”

“Just one teeny tiny thing, Cas.” Jays says seriously. “What the hell happened to you?”

I shrug at Jay. “I just need some fun and I thought you could, too.” I grin again.

“Fine, I’ll get something to drink. I think my sister has some in her old hiding spot.” Sky winks at me. “So, everybody in?” She asks. “After dinner in the pit?”

“Oh, and Nick,” I add, “Make sure your girlfriend shows up as well! She could use some fun as well, I haven’t really seen her for ages!”

“My- my girlfriend?” Nick stutters.

“Oh, come on man, we all know you like Zora.” Alec laughs.

Nick looks at us for a moment, before he eventually shrugs and smiles. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. I’ll ask her.”

“Perfect!”

 

After dinner I change into the only dress I have, the one I wore to the party after it was clear that we all passed the first stage of initiation. I really like it and it shows off my figure very nicely. Just like last time, I leave my hair hanging down and put on a bit of make-up. If I am getting drunk like I plan to, I want to look good doing so.

Shortly after, I meet Sky, Jay, Alec and Nick, who stands close to Zora, hands touching, in the pit. There is loud music coming from practically everywhere and I notice that we are not the only ones that decided to get drunk and have fun. Laughter and loud talking fills the air and I see more than a few Dauntless members with almost nothing on, dancing wildly with cups and bottles in their hands.

I haven’t even greeted them before Sky already hands me a bottle with a clear liquid. With a thanking nod I take the bottle from her and take a big gulp. It burns in my throat, but today, I don’t mind it at all and hand the bottle over to Jay.

“So, Cas, now for real. What happened to you? You actually seem … well, happy, for a change!” Nick inquires with a smirk on his face.

I shrug. “I might have come to the conclusion, that I might not fail initiation after all.” I smile. “That’s basically it.”

“That’s it?” Sky raises an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah, that’s what I said, _darling_.”

“And you only figured that out now, yeah?” Nick deadpans.

“You see, Nick. There’s a reason why she’s in Dauntless and not in Erudite.”

“Oh, why, thank you, Jay.” We stare at each other for a couple of moments, then we burst into laughter and I punch him in the arm.

 

A few drinks and hours later, we find ourselves in the middle of a large group of people, dancing like crazy in a corner of the pit. Zora and Nick are dancing very closely, and I am sure I’ve seen them exchange some kisses. I am dancing with Sky, Jay and Alec, and I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun. It doesn’t take much time until we are all slightly drunk already, which only improves the general mood even more.

At some point, we ended up in a bar in the pit and it’s not long until Sky and I are bought drinks by two guys that neither of us has seen before and not even ten minutes later Sky is dancing with a tall guy with bright green hair, while I am dancing pretty close with a guy about my height. He has dark hair, is alright to look at and has a name that I immediately forget after he told me. I lose all concept while I dance with him, it’s way too much fun and I am more than a little disappointed when I am suddenly pulled away by my arm by Sky.

I catch myself blowing a kiss in the direction of my admirer as I follow Sky to a little emptier area of the pit, giggling.

Sky nudges me in my side, grins at me and wiggles her eyebrows.

“What?” I laugh at her expression. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Darling, you should rather ask why Eric is looking at you like that.” She answers and nods somewhere to my left. It takes me a while to spot him and indeed I catch him looking at me – if only for a split second before he quickly looks somewhere else.

“Why _is_ he looking at me?”

“Maybeeeee,” She drags the word dramatically. “Maybe, because he likes you!” Sky slurs excited and pokes my nose. “He was totally checking you out!”

“He doesn’t like me, Sky!” I squeal. “He’s an asshole, you know.”

“Everyone knows that, Cassie! But maybe the asshole likes you and thinks you’re veryyy pretty!” She giggles.

“He doesn’t!”

“But I think you’re very pretty, Cas!” She leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

“Aw, you’re making me blush.” I giggle.

“Do _you_ like him though?”

“Noooooooo!”

“I somehow doubt that, honey.” She winks at me.

I take the last big gulp from the fancy drink the guy, which name has already slipped my mind, got me earlier. “I don’t even know him! I don’t know him. I can’t just go ahead and kiss him!”

“Yes, you could! You’re Dauntless!”

“Well, I know I shouldn’t.”

“So you DO like him!” She cries out loudly and a few heads turn into our direction.

“SHHHHH!” I try to shush her down. “And no! I don’t!”

She pets me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll get there eventually.”

“Oh, shut up! Can’t we just dance?” I whine and pull on her arm.

“Did I hear someone suggest we dance? At a party?” A voice exclaims with faked shock in their voice and I feel someone’s arms around me.

“Yes, I fucking did, Jay. Now shut up and dance with me!”

“So demanding today, Cas! I like it!”

My eyes flicker in the direction of where I remember Eric standing, but he’s not there anymore. I don’t have time to think about it because a new song starts playing and Jay grabs my hands and pulls me to dance with him. I gladly follow him.

 

I hate everything the moment I wake up the next morning. I have the worse headache I ever had and a foul taste in my mouth. I pull my blanket above my head - only for it to be pulled away a moment later and to be greeted by Jay and Alec.

“Come on, up you get!”

“I hate you.” I groan and glare at them.

“We know. But we have to get up.” Alec says.

“I don’t want to get up. I want to die.” I whine. “Just let me die.”

“Ah, no. This way you’ll never pass initiation, and yesterday you were so sure you would.”

“I hate you.” I groan again, but this time I slowly sit up. My head is spinning and I am overcome with nausea. “A lot.”

“You were so much more fun last night, Cas.”

“Ha, very funny.”

“If it makes you feel better, we feel like shit, too.” Jay says dryly and Alec adds, “We’re just not so whiny about it.”

“Shut it, smartass. Just give me ten minutes.”

 

Sky looks half dead, the way she’s bent over her coffee, but when she sees me coming, she flashes me a smile.

“There you are, dancing queen!”

“Shhhhh.” I hiss as I sit down. “Not so loud.” I say with a cracking voice. I gulp down some water in an attempt to rehydrate myself but it doesn’t give me the relief that I desire.

“Sorry.” She replies quieter now. “I hate you just a tiny bit, you know that, right honey?”

“Believe me, I hate myself as well.” We grin at each other almost painfully and Sky pushes a second mug with coffee over to me.

“Oh-oh-oh, look who it is!” Sky suddenly excitingly points towards the doorway where Zora and Nick just walked through – hand in hand.

“Oh thank god, it was about time.” Alec sighs.

Jay nods in agreement. “Yeah, seriously.”

They sit down with at our table. “Congrats!” I say as cheerfully as I can. “About time, you two.”

Zora blushes at my words, but Nick grins triumphantly. “Thanks, Cas.”

 

My pounding headache is still very present when Four calls me as one of the last three initiates into the simulation room. Dreading what I know will be another awful fear, I step into the room and close the door behind me, only to stop abruptly on my way to the chair in the centre of the room. My eyes are focused on the chair in the corner, the one where I got used to seeing Tris sitting on. Only that this time, it’s not Tris.

I groan. “What’s he doing here? Where’s Tris?”

“I don’t see why you would need to care about that, _initiate_.” Eric snarls.

I glare at him until Four answers my question instead. “Eric will be supervising the transfers’ fear simulations for a while now.”

My eyes flick towards Eric for a second and I am feeling even sicker by the thought of Eric seeing my fears. With this bad feeling I eventually sit down on the cold metal chair, awaiting the serum injection.

Four steps next to me and looks at me for a moment until I frown at him questioningly.

“Are you feeling alright, Cas? You look a bit sick…”

“For me it looks very much like someone can’t hold their liquor very well.”

“I wish I couldn’t so I could vomit all over you…” I mutter under my breath.

“What did you say, initiate?” Eric demands and I hear Four suddenly coughing - obviously trying to cover a laugh.

“I said, I am feeling perfectly fine. No need to worry, _instructor_.” I reply louder. I am really not sure how much Eric really caught about what I said, but frankly, I couldn’t care less right now.

“Careful, initiate.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Ready, Cas?” Four asks loudly, purposely interrupting us.

“Sure.” I am not ready at all.

 

I feel a sharp pain in the side of my neck and a burning that quickly fades again. I have a weird feeling inside my head, my vision is blurred in the corners of my eyes and everything seems a lot brighter than usually. It takes a bit until I recognize the main hall in the Candor headquarters, and it takes even longer until I notice all the people around me, dressed in neat black and white clothes, all their eyes focused on me. It’s like every single member of Candor is assembled in the hall, and I even see a few toddlers and kids standing close to their parents.

A man I have only a few times personally steps in front of me. Jack Kang. With a blank expression that is a very common feature among Candors he looks at me. There isn’t a single hint of judgement or emotion. He has perfected the expression, that isn’t really one.

“Please step forward, Cassandra.”

And then it hits me. This is a public hearing, one where the person who is questioned is injected with Candor’s serum, the truth serum. I’ve been to enough of those hearings to recognize them and know what will happen next to me.

I don’t move.

“Cassandra, step forward, please.” Jack urges me again.

 _No, no, no._ I don’t want to. And I don’t need to. Two men appear next to me and drag me forwards until I stand in the middle of the circle of Candor people. I start to sweat and my hands start shaking. For the first time I really look into the face of the people surrounding me. I see old class mates with their families, some of the younger show their emotions clearly on their faces and in every one of them there is hatred and judgement. I see my parents with blank expressions, my sister Claire standing next to them and looking exactly like my mother. Next to her, I see Tommy. Seeing him there, glaring at me with hate is what ultimately breaks my heart. I want to walk to him, explain that whatever is going on is not true, but the two men are holding me firmly into place.

“You are accused of betraying the Candor faction.” Jack Kang says, all emotion wiped out of his crystal clear voice. “Is that correct?”

I want to say it’s not true, I want to say that he’s lying. He is lying. But I can’t and all that comes out of my mouth when I open it is a strangled sound and I quickly close again, biting on my lips as not to say anything that I don’t want to say.

“You don’t need to fight it. The truth will be heard, it will find you.”

I need to say that he is right, the voice in my head whispers to me. No, no, no. I don’t want to.

“You left your faction, the one you were born into and that was the result of your aptitude test. By deciding to act against this and not coming back to your faction, you betrayed Candor. Is that not true?”

It is true. I left Candor. I betrayed my old faction. I don’t agree with their manifesto and ideals. I don’t want to say it.

I whimper when Jack Kang speaks again. “Tell us about your reason that caused you to betray your true faction, Cassandra.”

“I…. I-” No. It’s personal. It’s my decision, mine alone. But I can’t say it. The truth serum is working hard against me, making my head feel like it might burst from pain any second, it makes my body shake so hard that I can barely stand. I am only held up by the two guys.

“Tell us, Cassandra. Do not fight the truth. Only the truth can bring you your real freedom.”

Freedom. No this isn’t freedom at all - being forced to tell something. I want to be free and decide for myself what I do. And this isn’t it. This is why I left here. I can’t explain it, but something in my snaps, it’s like a the rope that’s strangling me is cut through and I can suddenly breath again.

“No! There is no truth to what you try to make me say! It’s subjective! I am not telling you and my _old_ faction anything about me!”

 

I am still shaking when I wake up from the simulation and my headache is worse than I thought is even possible. How could I forget about this? I’ve been in Dauntless for so long that I forgot one of the reasons I even left Candor - never wanting to be put through the truth serum several times during initiation.

“Ten minutes and twenty-one seconds, Cas. Well done.” Four says and I hear him typing in my results.

“Well done?” It comes from the corner. Eric. I forgot he was watching my fear sim.

“Do you have a problem?” I snap.

“It was pathetic, really.” Eric snarls. “Why would you be afraid of telling the truth, you’re from fucking Candor.”

“How about that, _it’s none of your fucking business, Eric._ ” I snap at him furiously.

“I am your leader, it is my business.” He states firmly. “You even got fucking Candor as your test result and yet you’re afraid of a serum.”

“Eric-” Four says warningly. Eric completely ignores him, and so do I.

“I said, it’s none of your business! I didn’t ask for you to know about my fears and even less that I asked for you opinion on them!”

“Shouldn’t you be used to people’s opinions in Candor? Don’t you do the same thing as one of those righteous bastards?”

“Of course I am fucking used to them! That doesn’t mean I want or need to hear them! At least I finally understand why you’re in Dauntless and not in Erudite anymore. You’re just too stupid to make it there!”

“What did you just say, initiate?”

“ _You heard me_. You don’t know shit about me. You don’t understand anything you don’t want to understand or doesn’t agree with your ideas. You just get angry when you don’t get what you want!” I scream at him. I am furious. “I am not done, Eric, shut it! You don’t understand that there is always a choice. I like to make my own choices. Your problem is, that not only do you like to make your own choices, but also the choices for other people, with no respect whatsoever for their choices! There’s a difference between choosing to tell someone something and being forced to tell someone something!”

We glare at each other for a long moment. “Looks like someone won’t be part of Dauntless very soon.”

“Fuck you!” I scream as a last retort.

I have left the room before Eric can say another word and door slams shut behind me. I stand there in the hallway where it suddenly all sinks in what just happened. Angry tears from in my eyes as I lean against the wall next to the door and I slowly slide down until I sit on the floor. I feel sick in every cell of my body. The good mood I was in just yesterday is gone. I want to die, I think as hot tears stream down my face.

“What the hell, Eric?” I listen to Four’s voice sounding through the door

“Fuck off, Four!”

“Oh, is it none of my business?” He snaps sarcastically.

There’s a short pause. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

The door opens again and I know Eric is about to walk right past me. I bury my face in my arms. His boots make a heavy sound with every step he takes until he stands still, the door falling shut. His shadow falls on me and I know he’s standing right in front of me, watching my pathetic figure sitting on the floor, crying.

“Go away.” I try to sound strong, but my voice cracks and it sounds more like a muffled sob, more pleading than demanding.

He doesn’t move for another few minutes, but then he leaves eventually without saying another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> As I said above, there will be regular, weekly updates from now on, though I don't know on which days exactly so just click the little "Subscribe" button and/or check out my tumblr (http://we-could-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com/) for updates!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised weekly updates after all! Please read Chapter 12 (which I uploaded last week) if you haven't seen this last update :)
> 
> Thank you to my lovely beta!

When Eric finally left and I am sure that he is definitely gone, I stand up, not wanting to still be there when the next initiate comes out of that door. Still fuming with anger and slightly shaking, I wander back to the dormitories and the bathroom there. I need a shower to calm down and wash away tears on my face. And maybe, I am hoping that it’ll magically cure the terrible hangover.

It doesn’t of course. If anything, I feel more nauseous than this morning and I decide to go to the infirmary in search for some pain-killers, to numb the pain and hopefully be able to sleep without having to think about Eric.

_How dare he makes fun of me?! How dare he!_

Enraged by his words towards me, I am unable to find any words to describe for how I feel and how much I hate him right now. I remember bits and pieces of my conversation with Sky last night, about Eric. Me, like him? Maybe I doubted my feelings about him before, but now I can honestly admit that liking him is definitely not an option and never will be again. _What a fucking asshole._

 

The luck isn’t on my side today, I think when I enter the front room of the infirmary and am greeted by no other than Ace.

As if I’d be in the mood to talk with her right now.

“Hey, Cas. Oh my, you look terrible!” She greets me cheerfully – and very loudly.

“Thanks a lot.” I snap.

“Well someone can’t handle a hangover.” She smirks.

“Can you talk a bit quieter, maybe? I’ve had enough shouting today.” I grumble.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” She says as she is rumbling through a drawer in her desk. “Is that why you’re in such a bad mood?”

“Hm.”

“Or your fear sim?”

I shrug. “Hm. Can you just get me something for the hangover?” I ask annoyed.

“Yeah, I am on it, give me a second.”

After a few minutes she comes up to me with a small container that she hands me. “Pain killers, made in Erudite. I swear, these work magic. Don’t take more than one every six hours.”

“Thanks.” I grunt and turn to leave, but Ace holds me back.

“So, what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure.” She frowns at me. “You do realize that I am from Candor as well, right?”

“So?”

“What did Eric do?”

“What?”

“You heard me, darling. I am not stupid.”

I stare at her for a few moments. “You know, people like you were the reason I left Candor.” Candor is full with people that look into other people’s faces and think they know what is going on with that person. Yes, obviously, you often can read people’s faces, but frankly, it’s no one else’s business.

“Yeah, I get that.” She smiles apathetically. “So what did he do that makes you look ready to kill me?”

“You know what? Ask the asshole yourself. He can tell you, if he isn’t too much of a pansycake to admit that he is as dumb as a loaf of Amity bread.” I snap and turn away, stopping at the door again. “And just to be clear, I know you’re his friend, but you don’t know _shit_ about me. You’re not _my_ friend. You don’t get to tell him _anything about me_.” I snap at her furiously and leave the infirmary before the surprised look on her face vanishes and she can reply.

 

It’s lunch time and the dining hall is full with people and I take a few seconds to look around the room trying to find my friends. They are not sitting at our usual table, which is occupied with some Dauntless guys I don’t know. Eventually, I see them sitting around a table in the back of the room. I grab one of the last muffins, not because I want to eat, but because my stomach tells me to, and I make my way towards them. I already feel a lot better thanks to the pill I took on my way here. I have almost reached my friends, when I catch Sky’s gaze, but stop when she holds up her hand in a stopping motion.

 _What?_ I form with my lips.

She bits on her lips and nods to a point behind me. My head snaps around and I see Eric sitting at a table with the other leaders. At least I am lucky this one time and Eric doesn’t look at me. I turn back around to Sky to show her that I am leaving, but she’s already walking up to me. When she reaches me she grabs my arm and quickly pulls me out of the dining hall.

“Thanks, darling.” I mutter quietly and smile weakly at her.

“Always.” She wraps her arm around my waist and leads me through the compound.

“Where are we going?”

“Where we’re always going when we’re terribly hungover.” She grins.

“So one time is always?” I remember the last time we were hungover. We went to the rooftop. Suddenly, I can’t wait to get outside and breathe the fresh air.

“No, but two times are.”

“I see.”

 

We sit down next to each other on the ground in the middle of the roof. It’s a cloudy day, but still almost too bright in comparison to the rather dark corridors.

“Hey! I wanted to eat that!” I cry out when Sky had suddenly grabbed my muffin out of my hand.

“Yeah, but not alone, honey. I interrupted my lunch for you, so I am getting half of it.” She replies as she breaks the muffin in two parts. “See, you even get the bigger half.”

I take my half of my muffin. “Thanks a lot.” I remark sarcastically.

“No worries.” She says sweetly.

We eat silently for a few moments, before I decide to speak.

“How did you know?”

“I heard you guys fighting in the sim room, and gathered after what I saw a few days ago that you might not be so … fond of seeing him.”

“Yeah, you guessed right.” I nod and look down on my muffin, before it dawns on me. “You heard me? _Shit!_ Who else heard us?”

“Hey, don’t worry. I was the last one waiting outside today. Tessa got called in by Lauren just a bit after you. I don’t know if they were able to hear you, as well, since they were on the other side of the hallway.”

“Oh, thank god.” I gulp.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sky watches me with worry written on her face.

I shake my head. “No, not really.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks…”

We sit there in silence for a long time, only interrupted by the trains passing by every couple of minutes. Sky’s presence comforts me, it’s a comfort I don’t really remember feeling before. It wasn’t like that with my parents in Candor, not since it was clear I didn’t share all their ideals. Not since that boy used me back then. Not since the fear simulations started, that fucked up my sleep, my appetite and my social life. At some point she scoots over to me, so close that we’re touching each other. I don’t mind it at all.

And it’s this moment, where it suddenly all comes crashing down on me again what happened to me today. I lived through my fear of having to tell the entirety of Candor and more everything about me. I was being ridiculed by someone, who once wanted to kiss me and was kind to me. I knew all along that I couldn’t trust him, that he was no good for me. And yet, it’s been a long time since something hurt me like this. Not even my parents abandoning me hurt like this - that was at least something that I knew was bound to happen, after I knowingly abandoned them. I’ve been used to their very calculated and foreseeable behaviour. The only unexpected aspect was that they told me in person - and took Tommy from me completely. But what Eric did and said to me today…

Tears form in my eyes once again, and I try to swallow them but I manage nothing but a sob, before they fall down my face. I lost my family, my little brother. I put false hopes into the wrong person just to get them crushed at the worst time in the worst way possible. I feel weak and defeated in every single fear simulation, only ever realizing they aren’t real when I wake up again, and yet they still haunt me in my dreams, causing me to wake up bathing in my own sweat, shaking and heavily breathing with no chance whatsoever for me to fall back asleep.

Arms wrap around my body and Sky pulls me close to her chest. Hesitantly, I wrap my arms around her and she pulls me even closer. Silently, I cry into her embrace, comforted by her stroking my back and muttering soothingly in my ear, that it will be alright eventually. I don’t really believe her right now, but somehow it still helps.

Sky doesn’t let go of me, she holds me until my breathing evens out and the sobbing and my tears stop. She still holds me when I stare emotionless into the mess of her blue hair with a blank mind.

It takes at least another ten minutes until I eventually free myself from her embrace. I wipe my face with the sleeve of my jacket before I look at her. She smiles at me.

“Um. Thanks for letting me ruin your jacket…” I croak with my hoarse voice. “I’m-”

“Not sorry.” Sky interrupts me. “It’s okay. That’s what best friends are there for, after all.”

“Best friend? You haven’t even known me that long.” I mutter.

“True, but that’s not what counts. You’re pretty awesome, and you definitely need a best friend, so here I am!” She smiles at me. “I am serious, Cassie.”

“Thanks, Sky.” I finally manage to properly smile. “I honestly love you, best friend.”

“I love you, too. You know, if you wanna talk about it…”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you.”

She smiles, then her eyes suddenly light up. “I totally forgot about this!”

“About … what?” I ask confused, as I wipe away the last of my tears.

“There’s this initiation ritual tomorrow afternoon! Normally, it’s only for the initiates that have older siblings in Dauntless, but I am sure no one will notice one more initiate or say anything if I take you with me.” She concludes. “So what do you say about that?”

“And what is that ritual?”

“I … actually have no idea. Chelsea wouldn’t say. Only that you probably shouldn’t be afraid of heights, but we’re Dauntless after all, so what of it.”

“Heights?”

“That’s what she said.” Sky shrugs. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

“Well, not exactly…”

“It’s perfectly safe! The ritual has been a tradition for many years now, and as far as I know, nothing bad has ever happened.”

I sigh. “Fine. I’ll come with you.”

“Yay! Perfect!” She hugs me. “But remember, it’s supposed to be a secret to anyone who isn’t going!” She whispers dramatically and I laugh.

“Alright, I’ll remember that.”

“Perfect!” After a while, she looks at me again. “Do you feel better now? Okay enough to get back down?”

I nod. “Yeah, I think so.”

Sky, sighs relieved. “Thank god, ‘cause I am starving right now!”

“You know what, I think I changed my mind.” I say it as seriously as I can.

Sky squints her eyes. “No, no you didn’t. You will not be responsible for my death.”

I giggle. “Alright, alright. I’m coming.”

“You better.” She grins and stands up, then holds out her hand to help me up. We end up walking hand in hand back to the dining hall.

The rest of the night goes by rather peacefully. Sky goes into the dining hall first and I am waiting outside without me even having to ask her. She comes back with a smile, takes my hand again and we get dinner together. Sky decides it’s the perfect day to spoil ourselves and we each get huge hamburgers and each get a huge piece of the chocolate cake, along with some red fizzy drink that I never had before.

 

“Cas.”

My name is called up as one of the last few initiates once again and I look up in surprise. I am sitting in the hallway, waiting for my turn for the next fear simulation, dreading the moment I am called because I don’t know if Eric will be supervising Four’s work again today. But my name isn’t called by Four, it’s called by Lauren. I look at her in confusion.

“Yeah, you. Come on, it’s your turn.” She says and is already back in her room. I look at Sky, who sits next to me, but she shrugs. She doesn’t know why I’m called by Lauren instead of Four either. I get up and follow Lauren into the room.

It looks exactly like Four’s room. Lauren is already preparing the injection and I see Tris sitting next to the computer. Immediately, the tension I had unknowingly held lessens immensely.

“Sit down.” Lauren says unnecessarily, as I am already on my way to the metal chair.

“Why am I here?” I ask curiously.

It’s Tris who answers. “Four thought it would be the best for you if your sims weren’t overseen by Eric…”

I nod. I am thankful. “For the rest of the sims?” I ask in hope.

“Yeah.” Tris says and smiles at me.

“Ready?” Lauren asks. I nod. What choice do I have anyways?

 

After lunch, Sky and I, as well as Nick (who explains that he has an older brother) stay behind when Jay and Alec are on their way to meet with Cedric and a few others.

“Where’s Zora?” I ask. I expected her to come with us to the ritual later, but I haven’t seen her since she was called in to her fear sim this morning.

“Probably sleeping or something. She didn’t feel up for doing anything, and she didn’t really tell me what she wanted to do instead…” Nick shrugs and looks down to his hands. “She doesn’t really like to talk after the sims.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what to reply to that.

“It’ll be alright, Nick. Don’t worry.” Sky smiles at him.

“Yeah, yeah.” He shrugs again. “We should be going anyways, we’re meeting up on the rooftop.”

 

When we reach our destination, there are already quite a few Dauntless, both members and a few initiates. I spot two girls from the dauntless born initiates, that I am sure are called Tessa and Tana, and a few others, which names I can’t recall. I never really made the effort to connect the names from the ranking with the faces. I see Tris standing around with some people, that I am pretty sure were playing capture the flag with us a few weeks ago. A couple of feet next to them I see Ace, Miles and someone who I am guessing is Sky’s sister Chelsea.

A cold feeling settles in my stomach and I turn to Sky.

Quickly, I look around the people on the rooftop before I turn to Sky. “Sky-”

“Don’t worry.” She interrupts me. “I asked Chelsea. He isn’t coming.” She smiles at me.

I take a deep breath. “Thanks.”

“Always.”

“And you really don’t know where we’re going?”

She shakes her head. “All I know is that it should be fun and that it’s _totally dauntless_.” Her eyes glint in excitement.

“I see.” I huff.

“C’mon, I think the train is coming.” Nick interrupts us, and I see that he is excited. There is this little tip in his step as he walks towards the edge of the roof top in front of us. I have to admit, I am excited as well. Hopefully, this will add to the things keeping me distracted from … other things.

The train arrives with a lot of noise and the forty-something people start jogging and running next to it and one after another jump onto the moving train. I run behind Sky and without thinking about it twice, jump into a train car, surprisingly without even falling or stumbling. My heart is pumping in my chest with excitement and adrenaline and I laugh, joined by Sky and Nick.

“Look who it is - my little sister.” Someone says from behind us and we turn around. Standing there are Ace and Miles and Chelsea, it seems.

“Yeah, what a surprise, sister dear.” Sky remarks dryly.

“And you must be Cas.” She looks at me with a smirk. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

My head immediately snaps towards Sky, but she raises her hands in defence. “Not from me, I swear.”

“Yeah, she wouldn’t tell me much. I have other sources. And I know a lot about you.” She winks at me.

“ _Great_.” I mutter.

“Don’t worry, I think you’re doing perfectly fine.” She grins.

“I sure do.” I look at Ace, _no_ , I glare at her. I should have known that no matter what I told her, she wouldn’t keep things to herself. Maybe she should have stayed in Candor, I think bitterly. She only looks back me with an innocent smile.

I am sure Sky must have noticed because she pulls the focus of the three friends back to her and away from me. “Chelsea, you really don’t want to tell me where we’re going?” She whines.

“Skylar, it literally only takes a few more minutes until you find out.” She laughs. “You’re still just as impatient as you were as a child.”

“I am _not_!”

“Yes you are, and you know it.”

“Oh, shut up, _Shelly_.”

“Language, _Sissy_.”

“Fuck you.” Sky shakes her head in disbelief, but it’s clear she and her sister are only joking.

“Sissy?” I ask her sceptically. “Really? That’s your nickname?” I grin at her.

“Oh, shut up! Look what you have done, Chelsea!”

“That’s what you get for calling me Shelly!”

“But other people call you that, too, so it’s different.”

“Well, that’s your bad, Sissy.” She shrugs and smirks. “We need to get out now anyways, so quit it, sister dear.”

I can’t help myself but exchange eye contact with Nick and burst out laughing with him.

 

We’re still laughing when we land on the ground and Sky joins us soon enough, having to laugh about the ridiculousness of it all herself. We jog behind the other members, Chelsea, Ace and Miles being somewhere in front of in the middle of the Dauntless crowd.

We are surrounded by tall, dark, empty buildings. The Hub is somewhere behind us. I realize that we’re somewhere in the north of the bridge, in the abandoned area of the city. After we walk a short distance it’s clear we’re heading in the direction of the tallest building in the city, the Hancock building. As we get closer to the building, everyone starts to walk faster in excitement until we are all sprinting towards the broken glass door and into the building, heading straight to the elevators.

“What are we doing here?” I ask no one specifically, but the only answer I get is Sky’s and Nick’s shrug. The elevator doors open and we split up into the three elevators. We’re squished into the middle one and I am suddenly glad that I don’t have that much of a problem with confined spaces. It still isn’t really comfortable, and I am sure at least one or two of the people in this elevator haven’t taken a shower for a while.

Someone must have pushed the right button, and the elevator starts moving upwards very fast and I am sure my inner organs are no longer in the same place that they really belong to. When the elevator finally slows down and eventually stops, I have to swallow a few times until the pressure on my ears is gone and I am sure I can properly hear again. The black masses spill out of the elevator into the 100th floor of the Hancock building. I look around. There is a large hole in the ceiling and I can see the blue Sky from where I stand. Some guy puts a leader up and climbs up. One after another person follows him up on the rooftop.

And then we stand there, on the highest building of the city, overseeing everything. The chilly wind blows through my hair, but the sun warms my black clothes. The view is far beyond amazing. I have never seen anything quite like this, never have I been able to see the land beyond the fence or how big the march really is. I don’t see where it ends. In the other direction I can see the city, I see the Candor headquarters, and at other border to the marsh land I see the Navy Pier, where we played capture the flag. I could probably enjoy this view for hours.

I feel a hand wrap around mine and I am pulled closer to the edge by Sky, where I notice a thick steel cable being attached to one of the poles of the building. Next to it on the floor is a pile of black slings. It takes a minute until it dawns on me, what we’re about to do.

“No way!” I whisper to Sky.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of heights.” She whispers back, with worry in her voice.

“But I am of falling.” I admit in slight panic. “That doesn’t look very safe, Sky…” I say as the guy that put the ladder up earlier, attaches one of the slings to the thick cable.

“Who’s first?” He shouts into the crowd. A tall guy, that shares a few similarities with him is fast enough and steps up. I am guessing they are brothers. He wriggles into the sling so his whole body is supported by it and the first guy pulls a strap along his back until he is, what I hope, completely secured. Then three guys pull the sling backwards, away from the edge.

“Ready?”

“Hell, yeah!”

And then they let go of him. With full swing the sling glides forward and down, right towards the city.

I am not the only one who gasps in surprise and makes a few steps forwards to see where the guy went. We can hear his cries of joy for a few minutes, but then he and his voice are gone.

“Who’s next?”

Quickly a line form and I find myself and Sky somewhere in the middle of it. Nick jumped right to someone, who is probably his brother, and is in the front of the line.

I turn to Sky nervously. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“I am one hundred percent sure it is, Cassie.” She says soothingly.

“Hm.”

“Look, Chelsea and all the others have obviously done it for years now and even though we’re in Dauntless, we’re not that stupid to do something like that for fun if it wasn’t safe.”

I nod.

“Believe me, darling. I’ve been here all my life.” She grabs my hands and squishes it.

“Okay, fine.” I smile nervously at her.

“Great. You chose Dauntless for a reason after all.” She grins and she’s right. I am Dauntless. I chose to do this so many weeks ago when I cut my hand and let my blood drop into the hot coals.

I watch person after person going down, some of them face first and on their stomach, others in their back, feet first. Some of them scream and only few make no sound at all, but all screams are filled with joy and excitement instead of fear.

“I’ll go first, alright?” Sky suggests when there are only two people left in front of us. “So you’ll see that it’s gonna be fine.”

I nod thankfully. “Okay.”

“But you’ll promise that you won’t be pansycake about it and hide when I am gone, or else…” She threatens me and I have no other choice but to nod again.

“Pinky promise, _Sissy_.” I giggle and she hits me on the arm.

“Shut it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

It’s Sky’s turn. Without any hesitation she gets on the sling, face down. The straps are pulled fast and she looks back at me one last time.

“I’ll catch you on the other side.”

And then she is gone. I watch how she throws her arms out to her sides, looking like she is flying. Her loud, joyful laughing fades fast and then she is gone and I can’t see her anymore.

I gulp. It’s my turn now and I nervously step forward. I am only a few feet away from the edge of the one hundred story building and I am about to glide down on only an arm thick steels cable.

“Nervous?” The guy asks. “Afraid of heights?”

I nod. “Kind of.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine. I’m Zeke, by the way.” He introduces himself.

“Cas.” I say and smile nervously. He seems nice.

Zeke gestures me to slip into the sling. “If you’re afraid of heights, you might want to lie on your back.” He suggests, but I shake my head. Instead, I wriggle into it face first and on my stomach, just like Sky. I said, I’d do it, so I am gonna do it right. Besides, I don’t just want to see the sky above me if I am flying through the city like this.

“Alright, a brave one. Dauntless was the right choice for you!” Zeke laughs as he secures all straps on me.

“Ready?”

I can only nod and I am already pulled back and released again before I even realize what’s happening. A surprised scream escapes my mouth and I am holding onto the sling as hard as I can.

 

I feel like I am flying, flying through the city like a bird. It’s as if I have wings and nothing will make me fall down. The harsh wind blows against my face and through my hair, making my eyes water. Everything is blurred in my view but I still can make out the people many, many feet below me, walking through the streets. I fly past the tall glass buildings and I see my reflection in them. I can’t help but laugh in enjoyment and another moment later I lose my grip on the sling and I spread out my arms. I am a weightless bird. _I am free_. This was the best decision I have made all week and I am almost sad, when I notice that I am slowing down. I slide the past few feet slowly until I am right above a bunch of cheering Dauntless people. I grin widely when I see Sky among them and she gives me thumbs up.

“Come on down!” Someone from the crowd shouts.

I realize that I am about twenty feet or so above the ground and that I would have to free myself from the sling and let myself fall.

I have a fear of falling, I think, but in comparison to flying down from a one hundred story building, it seems like nothing. Or maybe it’s the adrenaline that is still pumping through my veins. I don’t know and I don’t even try to think about it any further. I clumsily try to loosen the straps and wriggle out of it. A short moments of nothingness, and then I am caught by a bunch of people.

Once I am let down and my feet finally touch solid ground again I immediately turn to Sky and Nick, still grinning and slightly shaking from excitement.

“Wasn’t that amazing?” Sky laughs and hugs me. “I knew you’d do it!”

“Thank you so much for taking me with you!” I laugh with her and Nick. “This is the best thing ever!”

“I can’t wait to go again!” Nick exclaims excitingly. “And tell Zo about it, so she comes with us the next time!”

“She is seriously missing out on that one!” I agree. “And we should take Jay and Alec with us as well.”

Both Sky and Nick nod in agreement, then we start cheering with the rest of the crowd as we see the next person sliding towards us.

Every single one of the people that are coming are grinning and laughing excitingly, and everyone is cheered upon arriving down here. I cheer with them, now being able to relate to their excitement and joy and the feeling of immediately wanting to do it again. I help catch a few and I notice, that not once does the crowd not catch someone Everyone safely touches the ground again and nothing that I had been worrying about was actually worth worrying about.

Dauntless may be crazy, but really aren’t that stupid and careless when it comes to safety. I realize that Sky’s words to me are true. And I am once again glad that I chose Dauntless and never minded the aptitude test result. This is where I belong, even though I know that it’s not always easy. But being able to be part of moments like this makes the hard training to become a member of Dauntless absolutely worth it.

And I cheer - not for the last time that night - when the last person, Zeke, arrives with a loud scream that sounds more like a dying, laughing cat, than anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I know there wasn't a lot of Eric in this chapter and I hope you liked it anyways :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that it took a while for the update, but there were some technical difficulties and lost emails that needed to be taken care of first so that I could upload this chapter.  
> Thank you to my beta xxx
> 
> Hope you like this chapter :)

The feeling of freedom and happiness doesn’t fade until we all sit in the hallway the next morning, waiting to be called in for our fear simulations. We sit there for maybe ten or fifteen minutes and Sky has her head leaned comfortably against my shoulder. Jay and Alec sit opposite of us and talk and joke with each other, while Zora and Nick sit next to each other and Nick talks quietly to Zora, who only nods from time to time. For the first time since the second stage started, I actually look at my fellow initiates. Charles talks with one of the Dauntless born initiates, while Mia hopelessly tries to engage in a conversation between Tessa and Tana, the girls that went zip lining with us yesterday. It seems, since she broke up with Charles, she doesn’t really have that many friends.

Eventually after a couple of minutes, I hear footsteps on the hard ground and I look up to see Eric and Tris approaching us. Eric is wearing a stern expression on his face and I only look at him very shortly, before I turn my attention to Tris next to him, trying to completely ignore him.

“This will be your second to last fear simulation. In two days you will have one try for the third stage as training and then have a few days off to prepare for your final test, which will be a week from today precisely.” Eric snarls, without even greeting us. “Three of you will be leaving us at the end of the third stage and will not be made members of Dauntless. If you want to be one of those fourteen initiate above the red line, I suggest you don’t fuck up anymore.”

I still don’t look at Eric, but on the floor. I bet he smirks right now and I realize I have to fight against the urge to prove that assumption.

“Be brave. We’ll meet in front of the fear landscape room in two days at nine.” Tris says and I look at her. She smiles at us. That’s at least something. They both go into their assigned rooms to supervise the sims, Tris enters Lauren’s room, while Eric steps into Four’s. I can’t help but stare at his back until he closes the door behind him.

“Do you know if you’ll be with Lauren today again?” Sky whispers to me, after the first two initiates – Jacob from Dauntless and Cedric – are called in.

“Yeah, unless they changed their minds…” I whisper back to her, making sure that no one else is listening.

“Do you know why you’re not with Four anymore?”

“Well, apparently _he_ insists on overseeing Four’s work and Four thought that it would be better if Eric weren’t present to see my fears, after … what happened.”

“I never thought Four would be so thoughtful about it.” Sky shrugs. “He’s always rather … moody.”

“I know.” I shrug. “I am kinda thankful though…”

“Gosh, I’d be too, darling. I am surprised you didn’t punch him on the spot. I am sure I would have. Even if that meant that I’d be factionless the next day.”

“Now that you mention it, I wish I would have. It would have probably made things better for me.”

“Punching things always helps.” She grins at me. “Hey! I’ve got an idea.”

“Yeah?”

“I think it’s time for you to really punch something. We’re going to the training room after the sims, alright?”

I don’t have to think twice about her suggestion. “I’m game.”

“Fantastic! We wait for each other on the other side?”

“Sure.” I smile. Punching something sounds like a perfect way to take of my mind from the terrible things I know I’ll see in a bit.

With that settled we lean back in our seats and lean against each other comfortably and wait for our turn.

 

I wake up in the dormitory. My watch tells me it’s already shortly after seven in the morning, which is unusual. Lately, I only ever get a few hours of sleep every night and wake up no later than around four or five each morning. I see and hear the other initiates walk around still sleepy, going to the bathroom and putting on clothes, so I decide to do the same – like every morning since I’ve been in Dauntless. I stand up and put on my pants and tank top and go to the bathroom to wash my face. Just when I reach the door, Jay and Alec come out and I send them a smile, but they only look at me in confusion and don’t stop to talk or greet me. Confused myself now, I shrug and go into the bathroom. Maybe they just don’t want to talk to me right now - I can hardly blame them right now. The bathroom is empty, which is unusual as well at this time, though I don’t think about it, glad that I can use the toilet without anyone else being there.

I end up walking to the dining hall alone since Jay and Alec seemed to have already left without me. Usually, they at least tell me that they’re going ahead, but apparently not today, so I walk alone to the dining hall. Along the way, some people look at me with a weird expression, which confuses me even more.

I grab some breakfast and a cup of coffee and then go over to the table where Jay, Alec and Sky are already sitting, talking about something.

“Hey.” I greet them with a smile as I sit down. They all just look at me for a moment but then turn back to each other to continue the conversation.

“Um, did I do something that you’re not talking to me anymore?” I ask again, louder than before.

They turn towards me again. “Excuse me, but who are you?” Alec asks squinting his eyes.

“We don’t even know you, why would we talk to you?” Jay says.

“You gotta be joking, right?” I reply, my voice slightly shaking. “We’ve known each other since the first day of initiation.”

“We,” Sky gestures between her and Jay and Alec. “We’ve known each other that long, but we’ve never even seen you before.”

I try to laugh. “This is not funny.”

“No, it’s not. We don’t know you and we don’t know what you’re on about.” There’s not a trace of joking or laughter in Jay’s words.

“You- you really don’t know me at all?” I whisper. “You’ve never seen me before? Ever?”

“No, never.”

Just like that they’re turning their backs to me again. I am left staring into nothingness. They forgot me. They have no idea who I am. They don’t remember me and I am not their friend. It hits me suddenly. I am not nothing … or am I? If my closest friends don’t know me, who does?

In a rash motion I jump up from my seat, leaving my untouched breakfast and almost run through the hallways of the Dauntless compound until I am stopped just in front of the training room, by none other than my own instructor.

“Hey, who are you? If you’re a dependant then you’re not allowed to be in there.”

Shit, he doesn’t know me. He should know me. “I am not a dependent.” I am no one, apparently, but I need one last piece of proof and I push past him and stumble into the training room. The board with the current rankings in right next to the door and it only takes one look to realize I am indeed _no one_. I am not listed on the ranking. Nothing. It doesn’t say Cas anywhere on it, not even Cassandra.

I am no one. I don’t exist for the people here. I am nothing.

“Hey!” A loud, barking voice snaps. “You’re not from Dauntless, I have never seen you before.”

Of course it’s Eric, to make this situation even more perfect.

“Yes, I am. I transferred to Dauntless.” I say weakly and without much hope that he’ll believe me.

“When did you transfer here then?”

“This year, of course.”

“You didn’t. If you didn’t make it to the roof or whatever, you’re factionless, you don’t belong here.” He snarls. “And if you don’t go where you actually belong, things might be getting even worse.”

“I am not factionless! I am Dauntless!” I shout in anger. “I am not nothing! I am a real person! You can’t just forget me! You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!” I scream, louder and louder.

But Eric just grabs my arms and drags me with him. “You are nothing, no one here knows you. No one has a single memory of you. You’re not important, at all.”

I lose it and scream desperately, “I AM IMPORTANT, YOU ASSHOLE!”

 

And just like that, it’s over and I look into the face of Lauren and Tris.

“That was impressive.” Lauren says to me, nodding approvingly. “Really brave.”

“Thanks…” I say breathlessly. “What’s my time?”

“Seven minutes and forty-one seconds. It’s the best today, so far.”

“Oh.”

“I am confident that you’ll master the final test without many problems.” Tris says.

“Um, thanks again.”

 

I was called before Sky, so I have to wait for her. I jump up and down a few times to get rid of the last bit of shakiness and worry that I still feel. I’m glad that I have time to calm down a bit before I meet Sky again. I have whined and cried to her enough already, there is no need for her to see me like this again. In fact, I am rather glad that I managed not to stumble across any of my friends or the other initiates right after having to go through one of my fears.

I walk up and down through the hallway, no too close to the door to the sim room, so that the people coming out of it don’t see me right away. It’s maybe another twenty minutes until the door opens again and I recognize the person.

“Zo?” I ask quietly when she walks in my direction. Her whole body is shaking terribly and I think I hear her sobbing. “Zo?” I ask again when she doesn’t react. “Are you- Can I do something for you, to help you?” I ask carefully.

Finally, she looks at me with red eyes and shakes her head. “No, no. Thanks. I just want to be alone right now.” She whispers in a hoarse voice.

I nod. I can understand her reasons for wanting to be alone. “Okay.” I send her a small smile, but she looks down on the floor again and quickly leaves.

 

I am sitting on the floor a couple of feet away from the door when it opens again and I see Sky coming out when I look up. I jump back on my feet.

Sky looks so different than how I know her and I realize that by hiding immediately after all my fear sims, I’ve never seen Sky immediately after one of hers. She looks shaken, there is still a trace of fear on her face and her hands are shaking when she closes the door behind her. Her eyes find mine. Inwardly, I sigh. She doesn’t look at me in confusion, but in recognition. She knows me.

She looks completely lost, the way she stands there and doesn’t move at all, just looking at me. I don’t think twice about it and walk towards her and hold my arms open for her and she easily slips in them for a hug.

“It’s gonna be alright.” I whisper. I want to comfort her just like I can count on her that she’ll be there to comfort me.

“I know.” She says. “I just need a moment.”

“I am here for you, best friend.” Her grip around me tightens and we stand there in the hallway for a minute or two until Sky suggests we leave before the next one comes out of the sim room.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask on our way to the training room.

Sky cracks a smile. “No, I want to punch something.”

Laughing, I reply, “We’re two then!”

It feels like forever since the last time I did any physical training and now that I am to finally use my body again and exercise, my muscles are itching to be used. We enter the training room and head straight to the punching bags. We’re not the only ones in the training room, but the only initiates. Every other person seems to be a member already, but I don’t recognize any of them.

We stand in front of the last punching back in the row and Sky grins at me almost viciously.

“So, this punching back is Eric, alright?” She says, not too loudly, so none of the few other people in the room hears her. “We will punch him for the shit he does and because he’s an asshole, deal?”

“Deal.” I grin. “Sounds like my kind of practice.” I reply, remembering vividly the two times I actually got to punch Eric.

“I knew it would be.”

“You know me too well.”

“That I do.” She grins and we begin punching the bag in turns.

It feels good. Not as good as going zip lining yesterday, but it beats the drunken dancing from two days ago just a bit. With each punch either of us lands my mood improves step by step and it might just be a bigger step when either of us mutters an insult about Eric along with a punch.

We work out like this until our knuckles are split up and bleeding slightly and we’re both getting hungry. I don’t mind the injury and the pain it comes with. It is a price I am willing to pay if it helps to distract me and makes me less frustrated and angry about Eric, I think as we make our way to the dining hall for a rather late lunch.

We grab some of the leftovers and join Jay and Alec, who are each eating their last bites of some cake.

“Hey!” We greet them and hungrily start eating.

“What did you guys do? Did you fight each other, or why are your fists all bloody?” Alec asks us.

I shake my head. “No, we just did some … physical training again.”

“You should have told us, we would have loved to join you!”

“Sorry, it was sort of a girls thing today.” I shrug and grin. “Next time we’ll make sure to invite you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I am sure you will.” Jay grins and turns to Alec. In unison, they say, “Girls, man.”

“Aw come on.” Sky laughs

“We’ll stay your friends anyways.” Alec replies with a shrug and a grin.

“Even though you don’t include us in punching stuff.” Jay concludes.

 

Today we’ll go through our last fear simulation and tomorrow we get the chance to see what the final test will be like and in less than a week we’ll either be new members of Dauntless, or factionless.

It all makes me extremely nervous and all I want to do is crawl into my bed and sleep until after the final test, although I should be more excited about the fact that the worst part – as far as I am aware of – will be over in just a bit. And then I also be able to sleep properly again, I hope, and that is only if I pass the final test well enough.

Today it seems the waiting time passes by even slower than usual and I catch myself more than just once nervously tapping my foot on the floor. Like every day, we’re called in randomly, so as fate has it today, Sky is one of the first to be called in, leaving me feeling lost without her as a distraction. I have a feeling that after going through my last few fears rather well, this one will be disastrous. I just know it. I can’t help it, but I don’t believe that with my nervousness I am going to accomplish anything today.

I sit there for at least an hour until my name is called, again by Lauren. Some heads turn in my direction, when I stand up, obviously wondering why I am no longer being administered by Four. I walk into the room quickly, shutting the door close behind me. I sit down on the metal chair and without any further words, Lauren injects me with the serum.

“You’ll do fine,” is the last thing I hear and then darkness surrounds me.

 

It’s a plain round room with stone walls. There is no door, no windows. The ceiling is maybe fifteen feet above my head. There is no way to get out of here, I observe quickly. I am trapped.

“Cassie!”

I know this voice very well and I recognize it immediately, even though I haven’t heard it since the morning of my choosing ceremony.

“Tommy!” I cry out, holding my arms open to hug my little brother. “Come here!” I smile when he runs towards me and into my embrace. “I missed you very much.” I say to him.

“I missed you, too, Cassie!” He says and smiles at me. “I am so happy to see you!”

“Choose.”

I know this voice.

“What?” I look up, but I don’t see anyone. “Is someone here?” I ask again.

Tommy frees himself from my tight embrace and looks around himself. “Look!” He points behind me.

With a bad feeling, I turn around. I see a woman standing there. I don’t recognize her. She looks like no one and yet like everyone. She has plain features, nothing about her appearance makes her stand out and I would have said that she could be one of the Stiffs, but her clothing is made out of a shining, bright white fabric. I am unable to describe it properly, because it looks so unreal, as if it doesn’t even exist.

She is pointing a gun at us. Tommy, standing next to me, lets out a sob and he grabs my hand tightly.

“Choose.” She says again. It’s the voice from the aptitude test, I realize.

With a shaking voice, I ask, “Ch- choose what?”

“It’s him or you.”

“Him or me … what?” _No, please no, do not let this be what I think._ But what hope do I have? She is pointing a gun at us.

“One of you will die.” She says with a neutral voice. “And the other one will live. You must make a choice.”

No, no, no, no.

“But why? Why do you say that?”

“Choose.” She says. “Either you will make a choice or both of you will die.”

“I can’t!” I cry out. “I can’t…” I whisper. I am shaking. A sudden cold surrounds my heart and wanders through my whole body. My fingers go numb and I can’t feel my feet anymore.

“Death is inevitable. Make a choice, or more people than necessary will die.”

I look at Tommy through my tears. He looks so frightened. He is crying as well. What can I do to stop it?

I don’t want him to die. I cannot bear to lose him. He is my everything. The only family I have left. I cannot let him die.

I don’t want to die.

“You have to make your choice, Cassandra.”

“I can’t.”

“Then you both die.” She says. “Say good bye.”

“NO!” I scream and jump in front of my brother. “No, no, no, no.”

“So you have made a choice after all?” She asks, moving the gun up. It’s pointing exactly to the point between my eyes.

I open my mouth to say something, but I don’t know what. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be dead. This is not what I want. This wasn’t planned. I still have so much to do, there are so many opportunities ahead of me. How could I be ready to die?

I don’t want to die, I don’t. I can’t. I am repeating it inside my head. I can’t think clearly, panic and fear fills every inch of my body. The choice is impossible and there is no escape from it.

“Time’s up.” The woman says. “You both die. You didn’t make a choice.”

“No!” I cry out. “Please I don’t want to die!” I beg her.

Too late. She pulls the trigger and I hear the sound of a gunshot. This is it. It’s my end. This is how I die.

But it’s not. Moments after she fired the gun I am still staring her, my heart is still pumping fast in my chest, my brain is still working, trying to figure out what happened that I am still alive.

A tug on my hand makes me look down to my brother. He still looks at me with wide, watery eyes. His lips form an ‘oh’ and his face has lost every trace of colour.

“Tommy?” I ask. “Tommy? Are you alright? Tommy!”

He falls down on the floor and his hand loses its grip on mine. His eyes are still open. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move at all.

“Oh shit. No! Tommy!” I fall down on my knees next to him and only when they touch something wet on the floor I look down to chest and see the bullet would right where his heart is. Blood is dripping out of the wound. “Tommy! Wake up! No, you can’t be dead, you can’t! Thomas!” I scream and press my hands on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

“You made your choice, Cassandra. One of you will live, the other dies.” The woman says. She hasn’t moved an inch from where she was standing the whole time, the only difference is, that the gun has disappeared. “You live, so he is dead. You can’t help him anymore. It was your choice.”

“B-but I didn’t want him to die! He doesn’t deserve to die!”

“You chose that you don’t want to die. So you live. It was your very own decision, Cassandra. You knew about the consequences, now you can live with them.”

Just like that, she is gone and a door appears in the wall behind the spot where she stood.

And I am left kneeling over my dead brother with blood on my hands, my tears falling on his lifeless body.

 

I am shaking and sobbing when I open my eyes, I am not able to see clearly or make out anything that is in this room. I hear voices around me but I cannot make out the words. I think I can hear them calling my names a few times, but I am not sure and I don’t react to them. With some difficulty I get out of the chair. My hands are still numb.

I killed my brother. I killed my brother because I couldn’t bear the thought of me dying. It’s my fucking fault that he had to die. I am scared of dying and because I wasn’t brave enough to choose his live over mine. I am not brave.

I walk and walk until I find a dark, lonely corner in the room with the gaping hole and the net that caught us when we literally jumped into Dauntless. I sit down on the floor so that no one, who enters this room, will be able to immediately spot me. I don’t want to be found. I want to be alone.

My tears have stopped by now. I have stopped shaking. I sit on the floor and don’t move. I feel numb, inside and out. I don’t want to move, I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t even want to think about anything.

Instead I look up at the sky and watch the dark clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Again, I know there's not much Eric in this chapter, BUT - from next chapter on Eric will be more present again ;)
> 
> I'll do my best to not have you wait very long for the next update :)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ERIC IS BACK!
> 
> This chapter is what I call "the big bang" in my head. A lot is happening and I hope you'll like it :) I am so excited to finally post this chapter, especially the last part was definitely one of my favourite scenes to write!
> 
> Chapter 16 will be uploaded on February 1st, since it's the 1 year anniversary of the fic :')
> 
> Thanks to my beta!

Hours pass by but I don’t notice until it’s pitch black in the room and I can’t see anything but the black through the hole in the ceiling. One time, I think I heard someone enter the room, but I can’t say if that really happened or if it did, when it was.

I feel empty. Over the past hours I managed to make every voice, every sound inside my head shut up. There’s nothing left in me. It’s the only thing I manage to do almost every time I try – to blend everything out that I don’t want to think about. So I sit there and stare into the darkness and don’t do anything.

It’s the sound of heavy footsteps that wakes me up in the end. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I obviously must have. The room is still dark and I can barely make out any outlines. It must be late at night. The footsteps come closer and I try to make out who it is, but my line of vision is very limited and the darkness isn’t helping either. So instead, I stay where I am and don’t move or make any sound. Maybe they won’t notice me.

Luck isn’t on my side, though. The person eventually stops – right in front of me.

“Cas.” I recognize Eric’s voice immediately. I look at him. He’s close enough that I can make out his features. He’s looking at me as well and our eyes meet. I turn my head and don’t say anything.

“Cas.” He says again, more demanding this time. “What the hell are you doing here?”

That he actually thinks he can talk to me like this and interrupt me… well, doing nothing. But still.

“Nothing.” I reply blankly and stand up. “I’m leaving.” I say avoiding his gaze.

For a moment it seems like he won’t let me pass but then he surprisingly wordlessly moves out of my way. Taking my chance I almost run out of the room and make my way back to the dormitory.

Everyone seems to already be sleeping and I quietly walk over to my bunk. I get out of my boots and my jacket and lie down. My watch tells me it’s already past two. I don’t sleep anymore tonight. I know what will happen if I close my eyes.

I stare at the ceiling hour after hour until my watch tells me it’s six and I decide to take a shower. I notice that Charles and Cedric are already waking up as well and that Mia is already in the bathroom.

I completely ignore them.

The shower is quick and with my hair still being wet I go to the dining hall. Jay and Alec are still not up and I am glad that they’re not. I don’t want to talk to anyone.

The dining hall is still empty and thankful I get a big mug of coffee for breakfast and take a seat in a corner in the very back of the room. I sip my coffee slowly. I watch as the dining hall slowly fills as it gets later. From time to time I look at my watch, but today we meet only at nine, so I have plenty of time.

I am not entirely sure if I am really happy about this. I don’t know what to do with all my time. Maybe I should have tried to sleep after all, I think when I have to yawn. No. That would have been a bad idea. There’s coffee in this world for a reason.

“Oh my god, Cassie! There you are!” Surprised, I look up to see Sky running up to me. She sits down next to me and hugs me. “I didn’t see you yesterday and I couldn’t find you. I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Sorry.” I say lamely and with a flat voice. “Didn’t mean to worry you.”

She fusses over me for a few minutes. “You know I am there for you right?” She eventually mutters to me in a low voice.

I nod. “Yeah. I know.”

“Okay.”

“I just wanted… want to be alone.” I say quietly, not daring to look at her.

“You’re sure?” Again. I nod. “Okay. Then I’ll see you later, in front of the fear landscape room.” With that, Sky stands up again and leaves me alone.

 

I am the first one to stand outside of the fear landscape room. After I finished my coffee, and a second one after that, I had wandered slowly through the hallways until I found the room. I don’t even know what a fear landscape is, but the name alone doesn’t promise any comfort. There are no chairs around, so I lean against a wall and wait.

A few minutes after nine, when all the initiates are gathered around, the door is opened by Lauren and we step into a room. One side of the room is a giant glass wall with a room behind it. There is a computer and lots of stuff. Lauren and Four, and, not surprisingly, but yet unfortunate, Eric are standing in front of the glass wall.

It’s Four who speaks first. “Today, you’re officially in the third and last stage of Dauntless initiation. The final test will take place in five days, with all of the leaders watching you. Your ranking will be determined in the afternoon, counting in your rankings during all three stages, the third stage being counted the highest.” He looks around. “In the final test you will go through your own fear landscape. You will have to go through each of your fears and have to master them in a similar way as you did during the normal fear simulations. You will also find out your total number of fears on that day. The average is between ten and fifteen fears, but remember, it’s not the number of fears that counts, but the final time in which you conquer them all.”

Four nods towards Lauren. “Three years ago I had eight fears, among them spiders, suffocation and being kidnapped. As Four said, you will find out your total number of fears on the day of the test and not today. Today you will be going through one of my fears to get a feeling for how the fear landscapes work. Other than during the fear simulation in stage two, you will now be aware of the fact that you are in a simulation and therefore will be able to find new ways to conquer your fears.”

I stare at her blankly. I’ll have to go through all of my fears again. I am not even sure if there aren’t more than I already went through. Five more days and I’ll have to go through my fears again. I only have to survive that day and then it’ll hopefully be over once and for all.

“Alright. Tessa, you’re first. You get public humiliation.” Lauren presses a few buttons and Four injects Tessa with the serum, before he sends her through the door into the other room. We will all be able to see her reaction to Laurens fears. It’s not really interesting, I don’t know what they are doing in the simulation, so I just look around the room.

Sky catches me looking at her and smiles. I send her a smile back. Most of the initiates are talking with each other or watching Tessa. Even Eric just stands next to Four and looks at the computer. There’s nothing to catch my attention so I just lean against a wall and stare at some point at the glass wall. At least it will look like I am watching the others.

“Cas. Spiders.” Lauren eventually calls out and I go over to her, holding my hair to one side for the injection. I am not scared of spiders. Sure, they are somewhat disgusting, but that’s it. I feel a sting on my neck and a moment later Four gestures me to go into the other room. I stand in the middle and close my eyes, waiting for the simulation to start.

 

I am still in the same room. The first thing that goes through my head is that this is a simulation. It’s not real. And it’s supposed to portray a fear of Spiders. The moment I realize it, I see the first spider making its way from a corner of the room towards me. It’s black and hairy and about the size of my hand. Then I see another one coming, and another and soon there are tens and hundreds of spiders covering the floor, all crawling in my direction. I shudder. This is not going to be a pleasant experience.

I know I have to conquer this fear, and that means to slow down my heart rate or to fight it. I don’t know a way to fight against all these spiders and I want to puke at the alternative that comes to my mind. I don’t have a choice.

I sink down on the floor and sit down. Immediately the spiders that are closest to me start crawling on my legs and arms. This is gross, I think. I try not to move and not to immediately jump up and throw all the spiders on my body away. I close my eyes and press my lips together, just in time for the first spider to crawl up my neck. With every step the spider makes I feel a sting that hurts like a mosquito bite. And then it’s on my face.

Let this be over soon, I plead in my head. _Breathe in and breath out, calmly, Cas._ I do and just after a few breaths the feeling of those huge spiders on my face is gone.

I open my eyes and look at the glass wall. Four nods at me approvingly. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but then again I am not scared of spiders. This wasn’t my own fear.

I go back to the spot where I was standing earlier. I have to think of a way to be good at the final test; I have to make a plan. But my mind is blank. I can’t think.

Once everyone went through one of Lauren’s fears, Four reminds us again of the exact day and time of the final test and to prepare ourselves as best as we can. He also reminds us that three of us won’t be made members in five days and that our final scoring will determine the possibilities for our job choices.

Everyone starts filing out of the room and due to me standing in the very back I am one of the last.

“Cas, a word.” Eric snarls from behind me and I turn around with a frown.

I am not the only one who’s looking at Eric, I perceive. Four is looking at us carefully, I am sure he remembers the last time he was present when Eric and I … _spoke_ with each other.

“You can leave, Four.” Eric snarls at him.

Four looks at me again for a moment with a hint of pity in his expression, but then turns around and leaves the room as the last person. I wish he wouldn’t have. I wish I had just left and ignored Eric’s demand, but he still is a leader, who threatened to kick me out of Dauntless.

It’s quiet in the room. Eric stares at me with his usual stern expression. I have no idea what he’s thinking or why he held me back.

“So what is it?” I snap eventually. “I am hungry.” I am not really. But I am sick of standing here.

“You look terrible.” He says finally.

“Thanks for the flowers, but I know how to use a mirror.”

“You forget that I told you many times by now to be more careful with what you say, initiate.”

“Yeah? Do you have anything of importance to say? Anything that doesn’t revolve around how I look or what I do?”

Now, he is back to glaring at me. After a minute he eventually replies. “You can leave now.”

“Oh, thanks for the great conversation.” I mutter and turn away.

_Asshole._

 

I wake up crying in the middle of the night. Tommy, Tommy. No! My little darling, my brother. I still see him lying in my arms, blood dripping out of the wound in his heart, colouring my hands red with blood and leaving dark, wet spots on my clothes. I can still feel his lifeless body against mine and how the warmth seemed to leave his body so quickly. I see his dead eyes looking at me in accusation. I try to wipe away my tears, but only more come and I cover my face with my hands to muffle the sound of me crying. I don’t want anyone to know that I am crying.

I knew sleeping was a bad idea. I knew it. But I was so exhausted. I couldn’t fight it.

_Now this._

Through my teary eyes I look for my pants and my boots and quickly put them on. I need to get out of here - I need to be somewhere, where I am alone and where no one hears if I am crying.

I manage to get my crying under control as I make my way through the sleeping Dauntless compound to my almost sacred net-room, but when I enter it, there is someone already in there, two persons to be exact – making out in the net. I quickly turn around again. I am pretty sure it was more than just making out. I saw a pair of pants on the floor when I entered the room – definitely not something I want to interrupt.

I don’t know where else to go and I end up walking around aimlessly – until I suddenly find myself in the very dark and most importantly empty training room.

Perfect. No one will be here until the morning at least and I decide to search for a spot for me to sit and stay hidden from anyone that isn’t directly looking for me. I eventually find it behind some shelves with training equpiment.

The moment I sit down and don’t have anything that I immediately can busy my mind with the pictures from my nightmare come back flashing in front of my eyes.

Every time it’s my fault in one way or another that he dies right in front of me.

I can’t bear it.

I can’t. I don’t want to see it anymore. I don’t ever want to go through it.

 

I don’t know how exactly I manage it every time, I’ve developed sort of a technique to push away any unwanted thoughts, and most of the time it does work, at least for a while. It’s almost as if I scream as loud as I can inside my head, to make the thoughts go away. I never quite managed to completely delete memories, but maybe I’ll just work that out, too, eventually.

With nothing whatsoever on my mind I rest my head on my knees, staring at a wall in my view. I don’t dare to close my eyes, fearing that if I fall asleep my subconscious will be a bitch to me and bring back exactly what I just tried to push out of my mind.

It works this way.

I am alone in the silence and in the dark. It’s almost peaceful, but most importantly it’s just nothing.

 

That is, until after an unknown span of time I hear the door cracking open and heavy footsteps entering the room, while the door falls shut again with a loud thud. I bury my head in my arms. I don’t want to be seen. Please, just leave me alone. I hope the person just goes away again. No one who’s completely sane comes to the training room at this time of the night.

“Cas.” I should have known it. _Of course_ , it’s Eric. “What are you doing here?”

It’s like a repeating from last night. “Nothing.”

“Shouldn’t you be in your dormitory?” He grunts.

“What’s it to you?” I snap and look at him at last. “Do we have a curfew now or what?”

“It’s 4.30 in the morning. No one is up at this time.” He snaps back at me.

“You are though.” I counter back. “Why?”

“I am training every morning, as especially _you_ should be aware of.” Maybe I should have thought of that. I should have guessed.

“So why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone and do your training?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Be-”

“-careful. I know. Or else you kick me out of Dauntless or whatever.” I roll my eyes. “Seriously, if you wanted to kick me out you would have already done it or you’re waiting for the big moment after the final test. Either way, you obviously won’t do anything to me that will result in me to being ‘ _careful_ ’ right now, Eric.”

“Are you sure about that, initiate?” He snarls.

“ _Positive_. Besides, if you really wanted to talk to me, you would have done it yesterday. You had your chance. Now leave me alone.”

“No.”

I stare at him. “Fine. I am leaving then.” I stand up and push past him, but he stops me by grabbing my arm.

“You’re not leaving, we’re gonna talk.”

“Wrong. We are not gonna talk. I don’t want to talk to you. Like, never ever again. In case you haven’t, I still remember our last conversation very clearly, and I am not gonna listen to your bullshit again.”

“You won’t.”

“Won’t what exactly, huh?”

“Hear my bullshit again, Cas.” He says quieter, with kind of a calm voice.

“Somehow, I don’t believe you.” I snap back. “Now, I suggest you let go of me, Eric.”

“Or what?”

“Every man has a weakness, and in addition to that I already managed to punch you. Twice, if you remember.”

“I do.” He says and smirks ever so slightly. “So you’re going to punch me again?”

I glare at him. “If I need to, I will.”

Eric looks at me for a while still holding my arm. “I want to talk to you about your fear simulations and how you’re doing.”

It takes me a few minutes to process what he just said, before it slowly gets to me. He, Eric, wants to talk to me about my fear simulations. He wants to talk to me about them, as if the last time he talk to me about one of my fear simulations he didn’t make fun of me and basically kicked me while I was already on the ground.

“Fucking forget it, asshole!” I shout at him.

“I will not forget it.” He barks at me.

“Yes, you fucking will. How dare you even think I will talk to you about my fear sims ever again, huh? How fucking dare you!” I scream and yank at my arm until he grips loosens enough for me to get free.

He answers rather calmly for it being Eric. “I want to talk about what … was said on that day.”

“What was said?!” I shout in disbelief. “Have you got any idea what the hell went wrong exactly that day, Eric? Have you?”

“I-”

I interrupt him. “I can tell you - you don’t. I can also tell you, that while I just went through one of my worst fears, not by choice, too, you got up and told me in my face that I was ridiculous! You dared to make a judgement, where it was not in your place to make one, and then you proceeded to actually say that out loud _, to me_. You don’t fucking know me. You may be, oh, the mighty Eric, youngest leader in Dauntless, but you don’t know me. You don’t get to judge me or to make fun out of me. You have no fucking clue what that does to me. You thought it was your right to tell me why I left Candor or why I shouldn’t left, characterizing me and putting me into a box. You do not know shit about me. I walk through fucking hell for Dauntless, just to wake up and be greeted by Satan himself? What did you think you would achieve with being an asshole? An asshole that has no respect for personal space and privacy, an asshole that doesn’t understand something as simple as ‘no’?”

I am screaming at him, as loud as I can. All the anger that built up inside me about Eric and everything that he did to me in the past two weeks, back to the day that he pushed me in my very first fear.

My eyes are burning with hot tears that threaten to roll down my face any minute. I could hardly care at this moment.

Eric stays silent. He doesn’t say anything - not that I expected him to.

“You have no idea what the fear sims are doing to us, or to me. Looking at you, you probably went through them like they were nothing. Fine. And if you didn’t, I don’t care, but you behave like they are supposed to be a piece of cake for everyone and everyone who can’t immediately handle them as well as you probably did, is weak in your eyes, and ridiculous. You are one of the most selfish people I ever got to know. You only think of yourself, you don’t ever dare to think of anyone else. We’re literally going through our worst nightmares, daily, just to have to go through them again every night. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I got more than three or four hours of sleep in one piece. Every night, I have night mares. I am scared for no reason. I can’t walk over the chasm anymore, which is something I never had a problem with before. It’s completely irrational! I don’t like to tell people anything about myself unless I feel like I can trust them one hundred percent and even then I don’t tell them much. And then you come along and see one of my worst fears, without me even wanting you to see it, because I always had a feeling that I couldn’t trust you. I don’t know you. And I was right! I knew from the start that you are an asshole.”

By now the tears fall down my face freely and my voice breaks more often than it doesn’t. “And now, now you come to me, when I want to be alone, and ask me about my fears, when I just saw my brother die right in front of me because I was scared and not fucking brave enough to save him. That’s what you do!”

I wrap my arms around myself and my body is shaking from my sobbing. “And the worst thing is - I didn’t even want to tell you that. I had sworn to myself that I would never ever talk to you again.” It comes out in sobs.

Eric is still standing a few feet away from where I stand in the middle of the room and I am sure he’s staring at me. I don’t look at him, I can’t look at him. I can’t even move and walk out of the room. I am sniffing and crying and sobbing. I am a fucking mess right in front of Eric. Fucking great, I think and even more tears fall down my cheeks.

It got quiet in the training room and the only noise is my sobbing. I can’t stop crying. I thought after all the crying I did during the last couple of days I’d have no more tears and no more strength left to be so emotional. I thought after the dream I had managed to push everything I lived through in the fear simulation far away from me. Instead every single simulation flashes in front of my eyes and I see Tommy’s dead face and hear Eric’s laughter more often than any other image.

I can’t take it anymore.

My knees give in.

But I don’t fall. I am caught by two strong hands, Eric’s hands, before I fall on the floor. I barely notice. He holds me up and then, still without having said a word, he holds me against his chest and wraps his arms around me. He holds me close. Very close, but I don’t have the strength to fight against it. His grip is tight around me and I can feel his breath tickling against my ear. My sobs are muffled against his body, as my face is pressed against his shoulder.

Slowly, and ever so slowly, I begin to calm down. My sobs lessen and I concentrate on his breathing against my skin. In and out, I try to get to the same breathing rhythm as he is. It takes a while, but Eric’s grip not once even slightly loses its strength.

We must have stood there for at least half an hour until my tears finally stop. I don’t move for another few minutes, finding the embrace oddly comforting, until I remember who the person is that’s holding me so close right now.

“Let go of me.” I say with a hoarse voice.

Eric immediately obeys and releases me and steps away from me. I look at a point at the wall behind him, my arms are crossed in front of my chest. I am waiting for him to say something.

“You…” Eric begins, but stops and thinks for a second. “I wanted to… apologize to you, Cas.” He eventually says calmly and not in the usual voice that I know from him.

Immediately my eyes are fixed on his.

“I overstepped … a few lines.” He continues. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Well, it’s too fucking late for that realization, isn’t it?” I say before I can stop myself.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Good for you, but it hardly changes anything.” I reply sharply. “Now, that we have that settled though, I’d like to be alone again, thanks.” I turn my back to him and go back over to the spot where I already sat earlier.

“It’s not settled.” Ah, his normal voice is back, I think bitterly. Eric is facing me now and walking towards me. He’s looking down at me, but I don’t know if it’s his usual face I can’t read or if it’s my emotional exhaustion that fails to tell what’s going on with him.

He suddenly turns away from me and looks towards the door, that just opened with its usual loud crack. “Hey, you!” He shouts in what I call his leader voice. “Fuck off. Training room’s closed this morning!”

“Oh c’mon you can’t be fucking serious!” The other, male, voice replies.

“I fucking am though. Now go, and make sure to spread the word!”

A moment later, the door falls shut with another loud crack. “Oh that was nicely put.” I mutter under my breath.

“Yeah, well, like I said, it’s not fucking settled.” I stay quiet. “And I am not letting you sulk here alone in the dark.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I don’t normally do … stuff like this.”

I huff. “So leave.”

“You’re an exception.”

“So I get the special treatment from you? First, I get additional training, than an unwanted kiss, and at last I am made fun of and now you’re keeping me company when I don’t want any? Thanks, but no thanks.”

“It wasn’t a question.” He says curtly and sits down about a foot away from me.

I watch him for a few minutes. He looks straight ahead and not at me. He does look good; a sudden thought shots through my mind. Oh shut up! I tell myself.

I look away eventually and bury my head in my arms again against my knees. We sit there in silence, and to my surprise I have to admit that it isn’t an uncomfortable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it and thank you for reading!
> 
> Sooooo.... I'd like to hear what you think about this chapter :) either here or at my tumblr (we-could-be-four-and-six.tumblr.com)
> 
> And remember - Next update on Feb 1, exactly one week from today :)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF CONVERGENT!
> 
> Exactly one year ago, I posted the very first chapter of this fic, and at that point without any clue where this story would take me. Within the next few weeks and months more and more ideas came up and I quickly figuered out what the ending would be and that i would be waaaayyyy longer than the initial idea of writing a quick one shot to explore this fandom. I've grown so fond of this story, which is now by far the longest story I ever wrote and published!
> 
> I want to thank everyone who reads this story, who brought this story to over 3.3k hits and way over one hundred kudos! Thank you for leaving comments and sending me messages on tumblr <3 I never would have dreamed that so many people seem to like my writing and I am therefore incredibly thankful!
> 
> I know that my updates are pretty irregular, thanks to all the stuff I need to do for uni and this resulting in me just not being in the mood for writing. I love you all for sticking by through the weeks of silence. I will definitely finish this fic, no matter how long it takes, and I love each of you who asked here or sent me a message, mentally kicking my ass to finally update! Seriously, that helps and boosts my motivation immensly.
> 
> Thank you to by beta, Keelie - she is truly wonderful.  
> And thank you to my Azazel, who let me rent to her about Convergent.
> 
> So, let's celebrate with 5k+ words consisting entirely of Cas and Eric interaction ;)

I can’t really explain how feel. I am puzzled. On the one hand I am still incredibly angry at Eric. He’s still an asshole.

But I am not as sure anymore, if the hatred I feel is solely directed at him. Oh yes, I hate him for not respecting my personal space, both physical and mentally. He said things to me, that I am sure I will never really be able to forgive him for saying them. I am almost completely sure that I will never be able to trust him one hundred percent.

On the other hand, I still remember very well that he decided to train me personally to help me improve in the physical training. I still remember how, well, _kind_ he was to me on visiting day and that we would have probably kissed that day if we hadn’t been interrupted. I know that in that moment I wouldn’t have minded it.

He did push me into the abyss though - he pushed me and refused to help me up again. He let me fall.

 _But that wasn’t real_ , I try to tell myself. It didn’t actually happen. It all happened inside my head because I am afraid that it will happen in real life.

I am scared. Yes, I really am, I realize. I am scared of what might happen if I let Eric be close enough to me to push me. Maybe not literally, but that he will do something to me, if I let him.

And that’s exactly what did happen when he saw my fear of the truth serum. He got to know something very personal and immediately he used that knowledge against me and to hurt me.

Today, though, he didn’t. In my rage I spilled more personal information about me to him than I had planned to or wanted him to know about me, but instead of kicking me when I was already on the ground like last time, he caught me when my knees gave in and he held me close to comfort me. He apologized, and I am sure someone like Eric doesn’t usually apologize for their behaviour. Hell, he never did so before in my presence. Not even for the kiss he gave me what feels like forever ago.

I don’t know what to think about him anymore.

As a result of all this, I hate myself for thinking like that, when I really should be much braver as someone who chose Dauntless.

 

I hear some shuffling next to me and look to my right to see Eric getting up. Maybe he got bored after all. Not really surprising. I look away again.

“Are you gonna stay here?” He suddenly asks. I shrug. “Fine. I’ll be back in a few.”

That is a surprise. I look back in his direction but he has already turned around and walks to the door. Once more he leaves me puzzled.

I could leave, of course. Eric isn’t here to stop me from going. He didn’t even specifically ask me to stay until he’s back. But frankly, I have nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do. Maybe, I am also a tiny bit curious, if Eric actually stays true to his word and comes back.

He does come back about fifteen or twenty minutes later, packed with two bottles of water and two sandwiches. He got food obviously enough for two people. I watch him carefully as he walks back towards me with a stern expression. When he reached me he hands me one of the water bottles and a sandwich.

“Here. Take this. We’re going out.”

“Out?” I ask in suspicion. “Why?”

“You hid long enough in dark corners. You need to get out, so we’re going out. Now, take this and get up.”

Wordlessly, I take the sandwich and the water. He holds out a hand, but I don’t take it and get up by myself. Fortunately, he doesn’t comment and instead just starts walking. I follow, even though I am not entirely sure if I really should. Maybe, I try to convince myself that Eric isn’t that bad after all.

I catch up with Eric just outside of the training room. “And why are you of all people deciding that I need to get out?”

“Have you even looked at yourself during the last week?” Eric replies, without looking at me. “You look like shit. You look pretty sick and you lost weight. You obviously barely sleep anymore and don’t eat as much as would be healthy for you. You hide in dark, hidden places.”

“So?”

“I am sick of seeing you like this, always so miserable.”

“You worry about me?” I let out with a laugh. “Seriously?”

Eric stays silent for a long time while I follow him through the long hallways through the Dauntless compound and I notice that he’s aiming to the main entrance to Dauntless. “I want to help you.” He suddenly supports as an answer.

“Why?” I dearly hope he didn’t just meant the rooftop by saying that we’re going out.

“Because.” He says simply.

“I see. Great reason.” I reply sarcastically.

“Shut it, Cas.”

“Whatever, Eric.”

We walk the rest of the way in silence again and once we reach the entrance and step outside. We’re greeted by a truly marvellous sunrise. The few clouds close to the horizon are pink, purple and orange, the sun just rising and painting them colourful.

“Come on. You can watch that from the train. It should be here any minute.” He snaps at me and walks towards the train stop. I suppress a smile. So we are going really out, I am gonna leave the compound for the first time since the capture the flag game.

“Why are you always so demanding?” I mutter as I quickly follow him to the edge of the building. I am careful not to stand too close to him though.

“Because I fucking like it when people listen to what I tell them to do.”

What other answer should I have expected?

“Get ready, the train’s coming.” And indeed, I see the train coming closer and closer and when it’s close enough and Eric starts running next to it, I follow him and jump after him into the train wagon. I land painfully on my knees as I hadn’t been able to catch myself with my hands, which are still holding onto the water and the wrapped sandwich.

I groan getting up and again ignore Eric’s hand.

“Fantastic idea.” I remark, holding up the food as I find a spot where I can sit down.

“You can thank me later. Now, eat.” He remarks, demandingly, of course, and sits down on the floor directly opposite of me.

I only sigh in response and unwrap the sandwich. I am not sure if I am even hungry, but I know I haven’t eaten anything since … yesterday morning? I know Eric is right, when he says that I should eat more. My eating routine is probably even more fucked up than my sleeping schedule. We eat in silence and I watch the change of colour in the sky through the window above Eric.

Eventually I turn my gaze back to Eric. “Where are we going anyways?” I ask him with a frown.

He shrugs. “I have no place in mind. Sometimes a train ride is all you need to get out.”

“Okay.”

“Cas.”

“Eric?” I reply, slightly annoyed by his inability to just get it out what he wants to say

“I’ll help you.”

“With what exactly, huh?”

“Passing stage three.” He says it in a voice that implies how obviously I should have known the answer.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Just answer my fucking question.” I demand and stare at him expectantly.

“That’s all you’re gonna get out of me.”

“Are you even allowed to help the initiates to prepare for the final test?” I ask suspiciously.

Eric shrugs. “First of all, I am only trying to help you. And secondly, who the fuck cares? Four can go fuck himself and the only others are the initiates, who won’t care unless you tell them, and the leaders. I am one of them, and the others don’t need to know. Besides, you didn’t really mind during the first stage, did you?” He smirks at me.

“Why me, though? I thought you … had something against me after, um…” I don’t finish my sentence. I don’t know what exactly I mean, since in retro perspective there have been occasions and reasons for Eric to hate me, just as many for me to hate him. And yet, we’re both here.

It takes Eric a while to answer me, and when he does, he’s voice is quiet. “I don’t do this sort of thing ever. But I think, and I dare you to tell this anyone, initiate,” He face darkens at that threat. “I have made … _mistakes_ when it comes to this … _thing_ between us.”

I stare at him in astonishment. This is not something I expected to hear from Eric in a thousand years. And I don’t think he did expect to say something like this either, from the way he looks ever so uncomfortably, although he tries not to show it.

“You’re admitting to your mistakes. Must be the first time ever, huh?”

“Shut it.”

“This thing between us?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm.” I don’t even know what exactly this thing between us is. I know it’s not friendship. It’s something weird, something that weird so just a few hours ago I was practically ready to kill him and now I am sitting with him all alone in a train, talking about this thing.

“What made you realize this?” I ask.

“Some rather intrusive people thought they had a say in what I do and might have had a point in very few things of what they said…”

“Seriously? Don’t your _friends_ have any respect for the privacy of other people?” I snap.

“Yeah, tell me about it. I didn’t ask for their opinion.” He snaps back at me.

“I dearly hope so! Next time you see them, fucking tell them that I am none of their business.”

“Ace can be pretty annoying, I know.”

“She’s a pain in the ass, to be honest.”

Eric’s answer is a smirk. At least we agree on this.

“How are you going to help me?”

“So you’re accepting my offer?” He counters back.

“Somehow, I doubt that I have much of a choice.” The answer is, yes, I do. But I don’t say that.

“That’s one way to look at it.”

“What other way is there to look at it?” But Eric only smirks in response. “So what’s your plan?” I ask again.

“I’ll help you develop a strategy for the test, a way to pass each fear as fast as possible.”

“And how are you gonna do that?”

“The easiest way would be to discuss your fears an-”

I jump up. “Forget it, Eric!” I snap at him. “If this is you’re fucked up way to-”

“It’s not!” He interrupts me and stands up as well. “Calm the fuck down, will you?”

“As if I have any reason to believe you!” I shout at him. “This is fucking ridiculous!”

“If you could have just listened to me, Cassa-”

“ _Don’t_.” I hiss at him. “Don’t you fucking dare to call me by that name! Didn’t hitting you in your stupid face make that clear enough for you?” I shout. “The only name you ever get to call me is Cas, _my name_. Are we clear?”

He musters me. “Fine.” He eventually says. “Now sit back down and listen for a change.”

We hold eye contact like this for a couple of seconds before Eric sits back down. Eventually I sit back down on the floor of the train car as well, but a few feet away from where I sat before so that I wouldn’t have to sit directly opposite of Eric. I cross my arms in front of my chest.

“I am listening.”

“Good.” He snarls. “Now since you obviously don’t like it the easy way,” I snort at that. “I can try to help you understand the general things you can do and how the fear landscape works. I can give you examples of ways to pass common fears, so you’ll be able to develop your own strategy easier.”

“Okay…” I am not fully convinced right now.

“The difference between the second and third stage is that in the third stage that this time you are aware of the fact that that what you see and live through isn’t actually real.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Don’t interrupt me unless you have a question, Cas.” Eric replies in annoyance. “You need to use that to your advantage, as well as the fact that you already know a few of the things that you’ll have to face.”

“A few?” Eric looks at me annoyed. “What? That’s a question.”

“Fine. Yes, you went through nine fear simulations, but that doesn’t mean you only have nine fears if each one you went through was a different one.” Eric explains, his voice sounding now more like the instructor than, I don’t know. Something else. “Even if you went through one fear twice for example, doesn’t mean you only have eight fears. You’ll only get to know all your fears and how many there are in the final test. And this is what is often underestimated by initiates. They think they know all their fears and most of them get through the ones they know and made a plan for fairly easy, but then they are surprised by a fear they didn’t have to go through prior to the final test and then they panic. It’s the stupidity and their naivety that they think it will be easy in comparison to what they did before and they support that with the knowledge that they are aware it’s a simulation and that they can manipulate it.”

“And how do I know if I have other fears than the ones I already know?”

“Think. I can’t help you with that part, since only you know that, Cas.”

“Hmm…” I don’t know if I’ll be able to realize what else I am afraid of. I didn’t know I am afraid of drowning, and yet I am apparently. “And how exactly does manipulating the fears landscape work?” I snap.

Eric raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment any further on my tone. “Imagine you’re afraid of burning alive then you might be able to project water in any form to dive into. Manipulating your landscape is basically just finding a way around your fear. It’s one of the three possibilities you have to pass through one fear.” Eric explains and I am rather taken aback that I can follow him that well. “One other choice you have, is to calm down completely and the third is facing you’re fear. That means, if you’re afraid of heights, you jump.”

I nod.

“Depending on your fear you might want to pass them in a different way. Maybe, you know you can’t face a fear or it’s easier to just not to, you could concentrate on slowing down your heart rate again and calm down.”

I nod again. It doesn’t sound that difficult in theory, but I am positive that I will think differently once I am actually going through my own fear landscape, and I know at least one fear that will be a lot harder to go through than the others.

“Will the fears I know appear in the same way as they did during the second stage?”

“Some might, others not.”

“Great.” I groan.

“It’s your mind. The only person who has a little control over it is you alone.”

“Yeah, thank god.” I snort.

“And remember, the third stage focused on your mental abilities. It’s more about how well and how long you need to overcome difficulties that are in your way of succeeding. People like to think that Dauntless doesn’t require to think, but essentially that is the most important thing should there be a war or a similar situation. You can be as strong as you want to, but if you don’t know what to do or how to react, you’re dead.”

“And that’s why the third stage counts the most for the final rankings.” I add.

“Exactly. Good thing you seem to catch on.”

“Aw, thanks for the compliment.” I shoot back at him sarcastically. “You sound like a fucking Nose, by the way.”

“And your Candor is showing.”

 

By now we must have sat in the train for at least an hour and we’re driving through a part of the city that I’ve never been to. Eric keeps the conversation going and gives a few more examples for common fears and what possibilities there may be in the fear landscape to pass through them quickly and I listen up when he talks about that failing initiation and drowning. At least now I have a fairly good idea what I could do for two of my fears I know. Eric then continues to tell me, that it’s a good idea to think about where my fears are coming from and what caused them.

It’s easier for some fears. Of course I don’t want to be factionless and need to pass initiation for that. I am scared of dogs ever since I was a child and a dog almost attacked me. I have a fear of taking the truth serum because it gives other people the power to find out everything about me. I am not exactly sure where my fear of thunderstorms comes from. I just know that I’ve been scared of them ever since I was a child. That’s one of the harder ones to figure out. The fear of drowning completely puzzles me though. I have no idea where it could possibly come from. I never learned to swim, yes, but there was never the possibility to drown anywhere in the city. We didn’t even have a bathtub back in our apartment in Candor.

It’s not until Eric mentions to me, that often the fear that the fear simulation shows is not a literal translation of what we’re truly scared of. Sometimes it could just be a picture of something, like a metaphor, an image, to a fear that can’t be drawn on paper, he explains.

“One of the most common fears, where this happens, is the fear of losing control. More often than you might think it’s actually about wanting to have the control over everything. Sometimes it’s mixed with other fears.” He explains further. “It’s not always about control, but I am positive that most people are afraid of losing it in one way or another.”

“Are _you_ afraid of losing control?” I ask curiously.

He looks at me for a few minutes, and I wait for his answer, if he decides to even reply.

He does, eventually. “Yes.”

I am surprised. Not that he is, per se, because he pointed at it already. No, because he actually decided to answer me.

“How did it show?”

“Curious, aren’t you?” He snorts.

“It’s only fair. You know more about my fears than I like you to, so you should give me something in exchange.”

“I see.” He replies, and after a moment adds, “I was standing somewhere, in the middle of the city, but wherever I chose to go, I would always end up at the point where I started. I had no control over where I was going.”

“Oh.” I don’t know how to response, so instead I ask further, “What did you do?”

“I sat down on the spot and took a nap.”

“You took a nap.” I repeat in disbelief.

“I did. It’s basically just calming down and slowing your heart rate.”

“Hmpf.”

It could be as easy as that, taking a nap when you can’t move where you want to. I need to remember that, I think as I remember the simulation where I wasn’t able to move or talk at all. Maybe, this is all I need to do.

 

“We’re almost back.” Eric suddenly says and gets up. I quickly follow him to the open door and see that he’s right. I can see the Dauntless compound and the main entrance coming closer quickly. Eric takes a step back and then seemingly just walks out of the train car with just a little more effort. Just a moment later, I follow him.

It’s kind of awkward, standing there in front of the entrance next to Eric. I still have the half empty water bottle in my hand, whereas Eric doesn’t. He probably just left it in the train.

“Um. Thanks.” I say to him. “I didn’t expect you to-”

“Yeah. Me neither.” He grunts. “Remember-”

“Not to tell anyone?” I ask. “How often do you have to remind me actually? I am not stupid, Eric.”

He just raises an eyebrow.

“Oh and while we’re at it. Don’t fucking tell your friends any more about me. That’s none of their business. Are we clear?” I send him a pointed look.

“Yeah.”

“Good. And also tell them not to sniff around me all the time and ask me question, since they don’t seem to listen very well to me.” I know, that he knows, that I mean Ace especially.

“I’ll try.”

“You better.” I snap.

At this moment a truck with a bunch of armed Dauntless members arrives, followed shortly by another. I look at Eric.

“Alright, I am off then.” I say.

Eric nods curtly, and is quick to turn away and walk over to the truck that I assume are guards from the fence. They look like it, after all, and I don’t know why else they would be armed like that. I jog over to the entrance and into the dark hallways, in hope that they didn’t see Eric and me talking just now.

I only managed to walk down the long corridor and around a corner inside the compound before I bump into someone, who is quick to grab my arm and stop me from just continuing walking.

“What do you want, Mia?” I snap at her. I haven’t talked to her in ages, which was just how I liked it.

“I just saw that you came into the compound.” She smirks at me.

“So what? Are you following me around?” I hope she didn’t see me with Eric. That would only mean even more bad blood, as I know her.

“We’re not allowed to leave the compound, Cas, as you very well know.”

“What business is it to you? I don’t fucking care what you think you saw.” I fling at her.

“It’s none of my business, of course.” She replies sweetly. “But very much Four’s business as your instructor.” She starts dragging me down the hallway.

“And you think, telling Four that you think you saw me having left the compound will benefit you in what way, exactly? Do you think you’ll get extra points for that?” I ask as she drags me along.

“No, but I just don’t like you very much.”

“I see, in that case-” I stop surprisingly and yank her back violently until she loses the grip on my arm. “Thanks for this wonderful conversation, but I gotta dash.”

I apparently had misjudged just how determined Mia is, as she quickly jumps back to me and grabs me again, more forcefully than before.

“I warn you, Mia. Let go of me!” I shout.

“Forget it, Cassandra. You’re coming with me.”

And that’s it. “You fucking bitch!” I cry out as I slap her in her face, before she has the chance to evade my hand.

“Hey! Get off each other!” Four’s voice suddenly shouts from the other end of the hallway, as he quickly comes closer. _Where the hell did he come from so suddenly?_ I take a step back from Mia and cross my arms in front of my chest. Mia on the other hand smirks at me. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a conversation, what does it look like?” I snap.

Four already opens his mouth to answer, when Mia confidently says, “I saw Cas coming in from outside. She left the compound.”

Now Four looks surprised. “You’re not allowed to leave the compound during initiation without a member of Dauntless, Cas. You know that.”

“ _I know_. I’m not stupid.”

“Apparently you are, since you did leave the compound.” Mia supplies very helpfully.

“Did you leave the compound, Cas?” Four asks me now.

“I don’t think that that is any of your business actually.”

“As your instructor, it is my business.”

“Why do you care what I do outside of training?”

“You’re only an initiate, Cas. There are rules you need to follow until you’re made a member.”

“So?”

“There are video cameras at the entrance, it’ll be easy to prove whether you’ve left the compound or not, but let me tell you, if you did and I find out that way the consequences will be far worse.”

I don’t miss Mia’s mischievous smirk at Four’s statement. I don’t say anything, because I don’t know what to say. Technically, I haven’t done anything wrong; I know that, because I was with Eric. Four can hardly do something about me leaving the compound with, well, his boss. But the hell I am gonna tell him that in front of Mia. It’s bad enough that he’ll find out I’ve been with Eric.

“What consequences, Four? Enlighten me.” Eric voice booms from behind me.

Now, this is what I call the ultimate chance meeting. I wonder what I did to deserve this meeting.

Four raises his eyebrows at the sudden appearance of Eric, but he answers nevertheless, while Mia still smirks viciously and I lean against the wall, with my arms still crossed in front of my chest.

“Mia here claims that she’s seen Cas having left the compound alone.”

“Did she?” I am almost sure Eric’s voice sounds only ever so slightly amused. “What did you say?” He turns to me.

“That it’s no one’s fucking business what I do.”

“I see.” Eric’s is definitely amused by now. “You.” He looks at Mia. “Leave.”

Her smirk falters a bit and I am positive that she’s disappointed that she won’t be able to witness what’s going to follow, but eventually she turns around and leaves.

“I was about to get the video footage to see if it’s true.” Four says when Mia is out of sight.

“That’s won’t be necessary.”

“And why, Eric?”

“Because I saw her.”

“And what did you plan to do about her?”

“You realize that I have a name and am still here?” I remind them.

Only Eric looks at me for a moment, before he answers Four. “Nothing. She was with me outside the compound.”

“Was she?”

“Have you gone deaf, Four?”

“What were you doing?”

“I think Cas’ words put it very well earlier, it’s none of your business.” I can hardly suppress my giggle at this remark, and try to cough instead, looking anywhere but Eric.

“You know there are rules for relationships between initiates and members, Eric.” Four continues while eyeing both me and Eric in turns.

“Need I to remind you that you should be the last one to talk about those rules, Four?” Eric asks. “Now, if you don’t mind, I want to grab lunch before _the leader meeting_ later.” He turns around and walks away.

“Now that we have everything settled - can I leave?” I ask impatiently.

“You know, that there are rules that forbid any relationship between initiates and members, right?”

“You just said it.” I hiss. “So?”

“Are you and Eric-”

I groan loudly. “I hope you won’t finish this question. I swear if one more person asks me anything that’s not any of their business, I am going to explode!” I shout out and storm off, not caring the least bit about possible consequences.

 

Lost in my thoughts, I follow Eric, with a big enough distance between us, to the dining hall. I am not really sure what exactly just happened there. I don’t get what Mia’s problem is with me. Sure, we never liked each other, but I don’t think anyone really does at this point. She’s still very Erudite. But she’s not what’s leaving me puzzled here. And Four… in a way I appreciate his concern, and I sure get that he’s curious why Eric and I suddenly spent an entire morning with each other after the last time he saw us together, Eric … well. That wasn’t fun.

I don’t know what that thing was just now. It’s like we had sort of a moment together, as in that moment, we had something we shared and had this connection. He was clearly amused by what I said to Four, even though that was completely unintentional from my side. I don’t hate Four, but I couldn’t help myself but enjoy the way Eric talked back to Four. It was evident since the first time I saw Eric and Four being together in our training that there is a lot of tension and probably rivalry between them, but this just made is clear once again. I remember that Eric came in only second after Four during their initiation, but now, Eric is one of the leaders in Dauntless and not Four, and it’s clear from the way Eric stressed that he is going to a leader meeting after lunch. And somehow I get him.

I have no idea where that comes from, but something fundamentally changed between us during the last couple of hours. Have I forgiven Eric for what he’s done and said to me? No, not all. Do I trust him yet? No, but I think he finally understood that I don’t and what my reasons are, and now he obviously tries to gain my trust. He has changed. And constantly, ever since my breakdown this morning that resulted in being caught in a tight embrace with him, I can’t help but remember that it very much seemed like Eric seems to care about me in some way. After all, he kissed me once, he tried another time, and now he’s helping me.

I know it shouldn’t and I shouldn’t want it, but it brings a tiny smile to my lips. That smile still doesn’t make me forget that there’s a reason why Eric tries to make things up to me.

_But at least he knows now that he fucked up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading <3
> 
> My Tumblr: teaboyofficeboy.tumblr.com (yay new url as of 6th of January 2017)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure what to say here, except I'm reallyyyy sorry for the long wait, and .... surprise? ':)
> 
> Cas is finally nearing the end of here initiation!

Yesterday was a shit day, and so was the day before and mostly all of second stage. Spending time with Eric today was a surprisingly good change of that pattern, but I think my day only got perfect the moment I walk into the dining hall for lunch, still with a smile on my lips and see Mia’s face the moment she sees me.

She must have really counted on me having to deal with severe consequences. Too bad, I think to myself, and smiles sweetly at her. I get some food, having an appetite for the first time in days and quickly find Sky, Jay and Alec at the table that we claimed as ours.

“You’re back with us again?” Sky smiles at me.

“Yeah, sorry about … being _gone_ again.”

“Hey, no worries. We all need some time alone from time to time.” Jay says smiling and with a full mouth. When did everyone turn so… so understanding suddenly?

I grin. “Yeah, and I just need a few days more than other people do.” I try to joke and luckily am immediately met with grins and giggles.

We talk and joke while we eat and talk a bit about having to prepare for the final test, _and it feels good to be back_. Words of encouragement are exchanged, but the topic of Zora obviously struggling a lot lately is carefully avoided by us.

A few times, between laughter, my eyes wander to a specific spot in back of the room, to be honest, to a person. Eric. Two or three times he caught me watching him, but instead of quickly looking away or even leaving the dining hall like a few days earlier, I hold his gaze. I’ve grown curious about him again.

Sky, of course, notices, and promptly practically begs me to accompany her to get some cake as dessert.

“Soooo, Cassie, _darling_.” She says sweetly. “Tell me what the fuck happened!” I’ve never heard her voice going from kind to demanding and almost death threating if I don’t do as she says in a matter of seconds.

“Stuff happened.” I shrug and try to keep a neutral expression.

“Cas. You’ve been gone for basically two days, then I hear Mia tell people that you left the compound and the first time I see you again since yesterday you’re smiling.”

“Fine.” I give in. I know from my past experiences that I don’t have a chance with her. And I kind of need to talk about it with someone. “After lunch?” I say after looking back to Jay and Alec.

“Perfect.” She smiles in triumph and gets two plates with cake for us.

 

“So.” She looks at me. We’re once again on the roof top, sitting in the shadow. “You left the compound?”

“Well, yeah. Got caught by the glorious trio of Mia, Four and kind of Eric.”

“How the fuck are you not factionless?!” She cries out in disbelief.

“That’s not all of it.” I look at her and take a deep breath. “In the course of this morning I have screamed at and insulted a Dauntless leader, had a complete breakdown in front of him, ended up hugging him and him taking me out of the compound so he could give me tips for the final test. Later, I slapped Mia, got caught by my instructor, snapped at him and got busted by a leader again, who then told my instructor to basically fuck off and, well, here I am.” Helplessly, I shrug.

“What?!” Sky gasps. “I need details, before I believe this story.” I hardly believe it, and I’ve been there the whole time. Listing the events of this morning for Sky makes them sound surreal. How is it even possible for so much to happen in just a few hours that also caused me to completely turn around my mood?

And so I tell Sky almost every detail, and I am surprised by myself, that I even tell her about my last fear, which basically caused … all this. She hugs me, when I tell her about Tommy.

I also don’t leave out any details about the tips and advice that Eric gave me for the final test. If I would have to share that with anyone, it would be Sky. She nods from time to time while I talk; she never interrupts me – unless you count the numerous times she gasps in surprise or mutters “No way!” under her breath.

It takes a while to finish my telling her about my morning adventure, and I when I do we look at each other for a few minutes, speechless now.

“I can’t believe this actually happened.”

“Me neither.” I sigh.

“So, what do you think about all that now? About Eric?” She asks carefully. “I mean, I remember the last time we talked right here about him…”

“I know.” I say quietly. “And I am not entirely sure what to think about him.”

“He still likes you, Cas.”

“Yeah, I have that impression as well.”

“And?”

“I don’t know! I am supposed to hate him! He said things to me that I can just forgive and forget!”

“Yeah, I agree. You shouldn’t do that.” She agrees. “But there’s still something?”

“I don’t want there to be something, Sky!” I sigh desperately.

“I know, Cas.” She smiles. “But there already has been that something from the very beginning, hasn’t it?”

I groan and cover my face with my hands. “I guess so.”

I feel her hand on my back, rubbing in gently. “What are you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know. Wait and see, probably.” I shrug. “What else can I do?”

“I am definitely curious what else Eric is gonna do next. I mean, I’ve known him for the past three years now, and while I know he’s not always an asshole, he keeps up the cruel leader thing appearance up at ninety percent of the time. I’ve never seen him being actually and honestly nice to someone like that, which makes it hard to believe. It’s like he’s so flashed by you, basically, that he can’t handle it.” She giggles. “I bet he never cared that much about anyone.”

“You really think he cares about me?” I ask, failing at hiding the hope in my voice.

“Absolutely, Cas. If you were anyone else you would have been thrown out of Dauntless before the end of the first week! C’mon he brought you to the infirmary twice, carried you once even.”

I look at her and grin. “Probably.”

“You know the easiest way would just for you two to finally properly kiss and be done with it. I know!” She adds, when she sees my face. “That won’t happen anytime soon.” I nod. “But eventually it will!”

She lets out an outraged scream of pain mixed with laughter when I hit her.

_Well, fuck._

 

Just like every other night, I wake up breathing hard and still with the last image of my nightmare flashing in front of my eyes. I don’t have to look at my watch to know that it’s probably only around four in the morning. I don’t even try to get back to sleep and just dress quietly and leave the dormitory. On my way out I see that Jay is awake as well, I nod in his direction as I pass him. He sends me a weak smile but stays where he is.

I end up in the training room and sit down where I already sat the day before. It’s empty and quiet here and it gives me the peace I need to think. I still have to make a plan for my fears and Eric’s speech about control won’t leave my mind. I like to be able to control what I do, and I am pretty sure that it reflects in more than one of my fears. I also come to the conclusion, that the last simulation I had to go through, wasn’t just about one thing. It was both about Tommy dying and the fear of my own death that played together. And while I kind of fought one fear, my own death, the prize for it was the life of my brother. I wonder if that means that in my fear landscape they would be displayed as two different fear or if it’s just one fear. _Maybe I can ask Eric about it?_ I ask myself. I probably could _and should_ , too.

As if on cue, the door to the training room opens and familiar footsteps enter the room. Eric. He walks through the room towards the punching bags when he sees me and stops.

“Don’t tell me you’re bathing in self-pity and tears while hiding in the dark _again_ , Cas.” He sounds annoyed as he looks at me with… honestly, I have no idea.

“Funny, Eric. No, I am thinking, and this is a good place.” I counter.

“Thinking, really?”

“Yeah, ground breaking, isn’t it?” I smile sweetly at him. Eric just shakes his head and starts with his work out, without saying another word. I watch him, and I tell myself it’s not because I like watching him working out, but because it’s a distraction and helps me think. In a way at least, right? I ignore the voice in my head that tells me that there may be other reasons for it as well.

It’s only when I am in the dining hall to get breakfast later this morning that I remember that I completely forgot to ask Eric about the fears.

I end up spending most of the day with Sky and for a few hours we’re joined by Jay and Alec. I only see Nick during lunch, where he tells me that he tries to help Zora prepare for the final test, but he doesn’t look very hopeful when he tells us about her. The unspoken fear that one of our friends won’t make is hanging in the air for the rest of our lunch. Sky and I go shopping for new clothes in the afternoon and the day eventually ends without anything eventful happens. And, no, I try not to count Sky bumping against me during the dinner the moment Eric enters the dining hall as something eventful.

 

It has become sort of a routine for me to whenever I wake up in the early hours from another nightmare in the early hours of the morning, I’d go to the training room, where Eric is sometimes already working out or comes in only a bit after me. We usually exchange a few words, and then we’re each left off to our own thoughts and doings again. I am pretty sure that I have a fairly good strategy by now to defeat the fears that I already know of, the only thing that still keeps me thinking after another two days is if I have any other fears and what they could be. It’s one of the only things that make me nervous, except, well, taking the test in general.

Something changes the next time I am sitting in the training room that morning and Eric comes in. My final test is they day after tomorrow, and I still have no idea about any other fears. Eric walks directly in my direction where I watch him from and he stops right in front of me.

“What?” I ask sharply.

“I am sick of you just sitting here all the time.” He snaps. “If you’re gonna be here and have nothing to do you can as well do something useful instead of just sitting there.”

“And what would that be, huh?”

“When was the last time you did any physical training?” Eric asks me, instead of directly answering me.

“Oh, just a couple of days ago.” I reply as sweetly as I can. “I was picturing that the punching bag was your face.”

Oh, if I wouldn’t see Eric’s face right now, I’d give all my points to pay to see it. His face seemed to turn into an impressed expression when he hears that it obviously hasn’t been as long as he expected it to be, but his face falls when I finish, then quickly turning into a surprised frown.

“Then today should be a lot of fun for you.” He eventually remarks challenging.

I’m curious now. “You think so?”

“Definitely. You’ll train with me today.” He says with a smirk.

“Am I?”

“Yes.” Eric replies. “Now, move. Into the arena.”

I sigh and move to get up as he holds out a hand for me to help me up. I stare at it for a second, but then without a second thought take it.

“Thanks.” I mutter and quickly let go of the hand again when I stand. His hand was warm and felt rough against my skin. I try to ignore it and enter the arena before Eric.

We stand in the middle, facing each other.

“So what are we gonna do?”

“I want to remember what you still learned from our training sessions.” He smirks. “I wanna see if you’re able to land another punch on me.”

“Is that so?”

“See it as a challenge, Cas.” He says in a mocking tone.

“Don’t worry, I’ll have fun.” Now I catch myself smirking at him. It’s like in ‘old times’, I think, and jump out of the way of Eric’s first jab in my direction.

It goes on like this for an almost two hours. I come close to hitting Eric a few times, but every time he managed to block my punch or evade it. He on the other hand has more success with hitting me, although, just like during stage one, he never hits me with his full force, but slows his punch in the last second and only barely touches me. That only fumes my motivation and I try harder and harder, until he catches my wrist just less than an inch in front of his face.

“Nice one, you haven’t gotten much worse since the last time,” Eric remarks, still holding my wrist in his hand. “Clearly, you’re missing the element of _surprise_ here.”

“Yeah, too bad.” I say sourly.

He steps closer to me and our faces are only less than a foot apart from each other. “Come any closer, Eric, and you’re gonna lose your balls.” I hiss at him.

“I’d say I’d like to see you try, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, for once in your lifetime you’re absolutely right.” He then quickly lets go of my hand and takes a step back. “Wise idea,” I remark.

“Yeah, today is not the day where I take that risk.” He says and we leave the arena together. “Breakfast?” He asks and I look at him in surprise.

“Sure.” I nod, confused by the sudden offer to get something to eat together. He never did that during our training during the first stage, and maybe my heart flutters just a bit.

 

We barely make it one step into the dining hall before I feel someone hugging me from behind and causes me to stop and turn around.

“Cas! There you are! We need to-” She stops mid-sentence and looks at Eric. “Oh.”

My look shifts from Sky to Eric, who clears his throat. “I’ll … see you.” He says and goes into the dining hall and goes straight to the food line.

I turn towards Sky.

“I am so, so sorry!” She exclaims. “I seriously did not see him there with you!”

“I cannot believe you, Skylar!” I hiss at her.

“I really am sorry! I would have never interrupted you, if I had seen him, but I seriously didn’t recognize him from behind!”

“Yeah, sure, Sissy.”

“You did not just call me that!”

“Yes, I did. You fucking deserve it.” I grumble at her. “Do you realize that he asked me to get breakfast with him?”

Sky at least has the decency to just silently shake her head. I know that she didn’t mean to interrupt us. I even know that I shouldn’t be as angry as I am right now, I even realize that actually having breakfast with a leader wouldn’t be such a good idea, either, especially with the image Four already has of us. Still, though.

Nevertheless, I can’t stay angry at her for very long and after half an hour of her continuously apologizing during breakfast, I eventually give in and accept it. And as it turns out, she wanted to talk to me about “A wicked new idea for a tattoo, Cas!”

 

The next morning at shortly before five I enter the training room in my training clothes. I tell myself it’s because they are more comfortable and that I am only in the training room because that’s where I’ve stayed the last couple of days and that it’s definitely not because I know that Eric will be here at precisely five o’clock for his workout routine.

So I just sit down in my by now usual corner and try to think of any additional fears, and I know there’s something, but I can’t quite put it into words, before my train of thoughts is interrupted by Eric entering the training room. I watch him as he walk directly in my direction and, just like yesterday, stops right in front of me.

“You’re here again.”

“What, are you seriously surprised?”

He looks at me for a long moment. “No. Get up and we’ll do some warming up.”

And that’s what we do. We run a few laps through the training room, so some stretching and then we spare with each other in the arena. I use the time while we run and stretch to ask Eric more questions about the fear landscape, and he answers all of them as good as he can. I get a clearer idea of what to expect tomorrow and the only thing that I am still nervous about is the fears I don’t know.

I am able to almost hit Eric a few more times, but he’s able to defend himself at all times. It still improves my mood immensely, especially every time he praises me for a good punch or kick, or when I am able to block one of his hits. I am having more fun with Eric right now, than I ever thought I would have with him.

We work out until Eric declares the end of our sessions around seven.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” He asks me as we leave the arena.

I shrug. “Mostly, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Remember, if you don’t know what to do, just try to calm down. Just breathe. Take a nap, I am sure you could need one.”

“Funny.” I remark dryly. “Just because it worked for you, doesn’t mean that it’ll also work for me, you know.”

“Just try it.” He smirks. “You can thank me later.”

“You wish.”

“You’ll see.”

I roll my eyes and excuse myself to go take a shower, so that today there wouldn’t be any awkward breakfast incident.

 

I wake up the next morning already feeling nervous. Today is the day. This afternoon we will take the final test and tonight I’ll either be made a member of Dauntless or be factionless if I completely mess up the final test. But I have a plan, I remind myself. I’m probably prepared better than most of the other initiates, or at least I have more knowledge of what to expect later. I am more than a little disappointed when Eric doesn’t come to the training hall and I decide to get an early breakfast after I waited for more than an hour for him. He’s probably either still sleeping or already busy with preparing everything for later.

I am surprised to find my friends, including Zora and Nick already at our usual table and I smile at them in greeting, putting down my bowl of cereals and coffee in front of me. We eat mostly in silence, everyone is nervous. I can’t stop tapping my foot, Jay continuously taps his fingers on the table, Zora doesn’t eat and just stares at her food, while Sky nervously plays with her hair the whole time. The Dauntless borns will go through their fear landscapes first, right after lunch and the transfers after them. Sky tells me that we’re called in according to our last rankings.

We stay in the dining hall until it fills again for lunch. Most of the members that come into the room are clearly already drunk and most of them wear their most revealing clothes. I realize that for them this is a feast. I know that tonight there will be a feast in honour of the new member of Dauntless and I thought that that would be quite a party, but I didn’t think that it would already start in the late morning already. But this is Dauntless after all.

 

Before I know it, it’s already time for us to go the fear landscape room. As we get closer to the Pit and the fear landscape room the crowd of Dauntless member gets thicker already and it’s not until I see the big screens hanging on the walls that I understand why they’re all here.

We find two lines of chairs in the first of the fear landscapes rooms. The room behind the glass wall is still empty. Right in front of the glass wall all five leaders are standing as well as Four and Lauren. Eric looks at me shortly and nods almost unnoticeable in my direction. I do the same and sit down next to Sky. I don’t know who initiated it but we’re holding hands as we wait.

“Will everyone be able to see our fears?” I ask her quietly. “Do you know about that?”

She shakes her head. “No, only the leaders will be able to see them, not even Four and Lauren will see your fears today. Everyone else will just see your reaction to them and your time in the end.” She explains.

“Wait. _Eric_ is going to see all of my fears?” I hiss.

She looks at me apologetically. “I am afraid, yes.”

_“Shit.”_ Of course, Eric didn’t tell me about _that_.

 

It doesn’t take much longer until all of the Dauntless initiates are gathered in the room, as well as most of the transfers and Max holds a short speech about this being the last step to become full members of Dauntless, which, of course, ends with the words, “Be brave”.

Sky is the first to be called and I hug her before she gets up. “You’ll do great!” I say.

“And so will you.” I smile at her and she goes to the other room, where Eric waits for her with a syringe that’s filled with the bright oranges liquid.

In the end it takes her fifteen minutes and a bit to finish her fear landscape. I don’t have a chance to talk to her afterwards as she’s send outside immediately after the leaders congratulated her.

One after another, the initiates are called into the room and they all take something between about ten and thirty minutes. And then suddenly, sooner than I thought, Mia and Charles both completed their landscapes and Max calls my name. Nervously I get up and walk into the room, where Eric is already waiting for me with the injection ready. I step into the middle of the room.

“You didn’t tell me you’d be watching this.” I hiss at Eric.

“That hardly would have changed anything.” He replies sharply.

“It would have been nice to know.”

He doesn’t answer and instead I feel the sharp pain in the side of my neck. “I know you’ll do perfectly fine, Cas. Be brave.” He says quietly and I close my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you for still hanging around here and reading my story. I know it's been over a year since the last update, but to be honest, law school is taking up most of my time and after Allegiant came out, I kind of moved on to other fandoms. I always planned to finish this story, and I still want to. It's gonna take time though, and I hope that at least a few may stick around ':)
> 
> And you probably know the drill, english isn't my native language, this chapter is unbetaed and last edited at 11.30 pm and I'm tired, so I'm sorry for any mistakes that I might have missed.
> 
> I changed urls a few months ago, you can find me now at teaboyofficeboy.tumblr.com (which is mostly about Torchwood atm)
> 
> Let me know what you think/ if you're still around reading this?


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Cas to finish her initiation!
> 
> I have a few chapters already written out, although they still need some minor and partly major editing. So there might be some more regular updates for some time, but I really can't say right now. Thanks for sticking around and I hope you like this chapter!
> 
> Also - if you haven't read this fic in a while due to the long hiatus: I uploaded chapter 17 only a little over a week ago. Go read that before you read this chapter, in case you've missed that update :)
> 
> WARNING: Cas is going through her fears and the last might be triggering. I have (strongly) hinted to that fear in a previous chapter, so it's nothing too unexpected. If you still want to be save, please check the notes at the end, since I don't want to spoil anyone who isn't affected.

When I open my eyes again I am standing in my old room back in Candor. I think quickly. Which fear is this? I am in Candor, but in the main hall. This is not the truth serum one. I look out of the window, it’s dark, but I see the raindrops on the window. Thunderstorms, I realize I know what to do and quickly walk over to my bed. There is no way to fight a stupid thunderstorm, so when the first thunders sound I am already under my blanket and covering my ears with my hands. I am shaking and I know I need to do something, so I start humming the lullaby I sometimes sung for Tommy when he was just a toddler. To my surprise it doesn’t take long until I am suddenly no long under my blanket lying in my old bed.

I am standing in the middle of the dining hall and I know right away which fear it is. I don’t waste much time and as soon as the two bowls with the cheese and the knife appear I grab the knife before the voice could even tell me to choose between them. And then I already hear the barking of the dog beast at the other end of the hall. This time I don’t run away from it, but I walk right up to the dog, the knife ready to throw. The dog barks at me, loud and dangerous and my heart skips a beat and my hands start shaking. Calm down, I tell myself and raise my arms, feeling the weight of the knife. I know I am fairly good at knife throwing. The dog jumps at me when we’re only a couple of feet away from each other, and I throw.

Suddenly, I find myself in the pit. Around me people are talking and laughing, some are even dancing. I see Sky and the others just a few feet next to me. I try to open my mouth and greet them but I am unable to say anything. I try to move my arm and wave, but it doesn’t move. _Right. It’s not real._ My heart is thumping in my chest. I know this one. I close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing.

I wake up to a different scenery. I am lying in my bed in the dormitory and Jay is leaning over me. “Excuse me, this is the dormitory for the initiates. I don’t know you, so I know that you’re not supposed to be here.” The fear of being forgotten. “Fuck off.” I reply sharply, ignoring the anxious feeling in my stomach. “I don’t care if you know me or not, I just wanna sleep.” _Just take a nap_. I remember Eric’s words and involuntarily smirk slightly. So I am using this tip after all, and I will definitely not thank him for that, it could have been my own idea as well.

I stand in front of the scoring board and look at all the names on the list that is parted into two parts, one being labelled ‘New member’ and the other ‘Factionless’. My name is on the second list and I swallow. Simulation, I try to recall. I take a deep breath. I didn’t fail initiation so far and if I don’t want to fail I need to get passed this. “You need to leave the compound immediately, initiate, or I will have to force you.” Eric suddenly appears next to the board and snarls at me. He looks ready to use this violence by the first chance he gets. I can’t let this happen. “I…I” I stutter and clear my throat. “I won’t!” I manage to shout. “I did not fail initiation and I definitely won’t! I am one of the best initiates you got this year. You won’t make me factionless!”

Change of scenery. I am standing in the main hall of Candor and I only see Jack Kang approaching me from the side before I already feel the injection in the side of my neck. Truth serum. This isn’t about telling the truth specifically, it’s about having control and being able to choose what I tell anyone. I have to get that control back, and the theory that I developed during the last few days is that if I can’t hear the questions I am asked I can’t answer them. It sounds awfully ridiculous, but I try it either way and press my hands on my ears as hard as I can and close my eyes. Repeatedly, I think, I don’t want to answer, I don’t want to, don’t want to... I hear a bit of murmuring around me, but I try to ignore it. I start saying it out loud, louder and louder, until I scream, “I don’t want to answer your questions, Kang!” Silence. I open my eyes. The room is empty.

I see the room dissolve into thin air and suddenly there’s nothing but blue, cold water all around me and completely drenches me within moments. Fear of drowning. I still haven’t figured out where that fear comes from but as my heavy boots and now from the water heavy clothes pull me under the water I don’t fight it. It was one of the first examples Eric gave me when we went on that train journey. As soon as I am under water I let all air escape from my lungs. I don’t know how to swim anyway – I never needed to learn, so I just let myself sink deeper and deeper into the water until my visions turns black.

 _Air_. I take in a couple of deep breaths, filling my lungs with as much air as I can, before I look around. I am on the roof top. The dark clouds are hanging deep and the whole atmosphere has a bad vibe. Again, I recognize this fear immediately; I know this one will be a bit harder to pass than the ones before. I had hoped so much, that this one specifically wouldn’t be the same as during stage two. I walk over to the black hole in the roof top. My hands are shaking and my heart is beating fast and before I know it I already stumble and fall into the hole, only being able to hold on to the edge in the very last second and it doesn’t take much longer until Eric appears on the edge right about me with a maniac smirk on his face. “I pushed you again, Cassandra!” He laughs bitterly. “And you couldn’t do anything about it.” A tear roles down my cheek and I swallow. _Remember the plan, Cas._ I tell myself. _You have a plan, be brave. Just do it. Do it_. “I will let you fall again, Cassandra.” He says. I take one last deep breath. “No, you won’t.” I reply with a shaking voice. “I’ll do it myself.” And I let go and fall, fall into the darkness until it all surrounds me.

My fall is caught when I land in the net at the bottom of the hole. This is new, I notice and immediately my heart rate picks up. With some difficulties I manage to get down from the net and am suddenly surrounded by a bunch of people I know. First in line I see Sky, next to her Jay and Alec, Nick and Zo. Behind them my parents are standing together with Claire and Tommy. I spot Eric and Four. A few of the other initiates that I spoke with only a few times, some people from Candor, including that idiot that is my ex-boyfriend. They all have one thing in common: they look at me with hatred pasted on their faces. “Hey, what is wrong?” I ask them in confusion. “Sky? What is it? I am your best friend, you can tell me!” I beg her and step closer to her. “No, wrong, Cassandra, you were my best friend,” She practically spits in my face. “You were our daughter once, Cassandra, but you’re not anymore!” My father shouts at me. Now everyone chimes in and tells me what I once were to them, including the voice of my brother telling me that I am not longer his sister. I try to tell me what I have done, but none of them answer me and all at once they turn their back to me and leave the room, while I am standing there with tears rolling down my cheeks. I wasn’t prepared for this. Get it together, Cas! This isn’t real! Tell them to- “Fuck off!” I scream as loud as I can. “I don’t fucking need you anyways! Fuck all of you!”

I am suddenly back in the dining hall and I wipe away the last of my tears from my face. I look around the room, and when see my brother running towards me my heart skips a beat, both from having him back but also because I know what this means. My brother hugs me, but it doesn’t take long until we’re interrupter by the voice again. “Choose,” the plain looking woman says and points her gun at me. Immediately, my fear changes into anger and rage and I let go of Tommy and stand up straight again. “No.” I say and I run towards her, kick her into the stomach and take the gun in one swift motion. “You want to kill either of us? Try doing that when you’re dead!” I point the gun at her head and pull the trigger. She’s disappears in front of my eyes before she even hits the floor.

My surroundings don’t change this time. I look around. There are still no doors, my brother and the woman, as well as the gun in my hand have disappeared though. I look to my right and let out a surprised shriek when I see two men standing on the left and right side of a table. Each one of them holds something in their right hand. “If you want this to end you’ll have to make a choice.” The man standing on the right side of the table says. He’s holding a gun.

“What choice is it this time?” I ask hesitantly. This scenario is new, but if I was right in my assumptions about my fears, this couldn’t possibly be good. I am nervous.

“The choice of how you want to die.” The left man says. He’s holding a syringe which is filled with a purple liquid. _Shit_. I was right. Death. My worst fear. I can’t just end my life! I think and swallow. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to die.

“There’s no other way out of this but your own death.” The right man says.

“Wha- what are my choices?” I stutter.

“Being shot. Painful, but quick.” The same man replies.

“Or the death serum. Slow, but peaceful.” The man on the left replies.

Panic start to build up in my chest and I can hardly breath anymore. Pain or peace, quick or slow? I look around the room. No doors, no windows. I am trapped. I try to remind myself that this isn’t real, that it’s just happening inside my head, but it doesn’t work to calm me down. I have to make a decision. I could kill them.

“Killing us doesn’t work, Cassandra.” The left man says.

And the other adds, “You have to make a choice to end this.”

My breathing is fast and my hands are sweaty. I want it to be quick but I don’t want to feel any pain. _Just take a nap._ Eric’s voice suddenly is back in my head. Yeah, I could need one.

“The… the serum.” I whisper almost inaudible and my tears star flowing down my face again.

The man on the left steps forwards. I lie down on the floor and close my eyes. Just take a nap, I repeat inside my head, as I feel the sharp pain of the needle stitching into my skin on the side of my neck. I fall asleep.

 

I wake up surprisingly calm and quickly take my sleeve to wipe away any tears that are still on my face. I sit up. I am back in the fear landscape room. The door opens and I quickly stand up. Eric enters the room, followed by Max, Four and the other leaders that I never learned the names of.

Eric steps forward and holds out his hand. I take it and we shake hands. “Congratulations, Cas. You successfully completed the last stage of initiation.” His face is as neutral as it could possibly be.

“Thanks.” I mutter quietly, not meeting his eyes.

“The banquet is at six. Your rankings will be announced then, along with everyone else’s.” Max says to me. “Good luck.”

I nod in thanks and all the leaders except Eric, who is already holding the syringe for the next person, turn to leave the room. I feel Eric’s gaze on me as I leave the room after the leaders, and I half expect him to say something. But he doesn’t and I step out into the hallway, that’s filled with loud and drunken people.

The realization that I just went through all my fears and that I managed not to _completely_ freak out in any of them still hasn’t sunk in and my brain can hardly even process the fact that it’s all over now and that I can’t do anything more to change my rankings now.

I try to find Sky in the crowd that makes it hard to really properly breathe, but I can’t find her blue hair anywhere, not even in the dining hall, so I make my way up to the rooftop, in hope that she too need some air to breathe.

I step onto the roof and immediately see her sitting in the shadow of a wall. She must have heard me, because she looks up to me and smiles. She gets up and walks towards me, meeting me in a tight hug.

“We got through it all, Cassie!” She whispers.

“I know.” I reply. “Now we only need to wait another few hours to see if we’re made members.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic! Of course, we will!”

“I really hope you’re right.” I say and smile at her, letting go of the embrace.

“Of course, I am! After all the help you got from Eric, it couldn’t have been that bad!”

I bite my lips. “No, actually it wasn’t. All my plans worked out quite well and I even got through the two new scenarios.” I say.

“Only two new ones? How many fears do you have in total?”

I quickly go through them in my head. “Um, eleven.”

“Wow, that nice!”

“How many do you have?” I ask now curiously.

“Twelve.” She answers and smiles. “I need to get rid of one so we’re even!” She laughs.

“Awww, don’t be like this, Sissy!” I laugh at her and promptly receive a punch against my arm.

“Ouch!”

“You deserved it.”

“It was worth it though.” I grin and hug her again. Just being around Sky calms me down and at least temporarily manages to chase away the last traces of anxiousness form my fear landscape.

 

When it’s a quarter to six we make our way back down and to the dining hall. We haven’t really spoken for the last half hour due to both of us being nervous as hell, even though Sky constantly tells me that we shouldn’t need to worry. I am almost sure that I made it but I want to be one of the top five to even be considered as a faction ambassador and I am not so sure if I was that good.

We immediately walk over to our table, where Jay and Alec are already waiting. Only a moment later Nick and Zora join us. Nick is holding Zora’s hand and keeps her close to him. Zora herself looks pale and her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

None of us says anything while we wait and fortunately we don’t have to wait for very long until a microphone squeals through the room that make me shudder. We all look around to see where the sound is coming from and we don’t have to look long. Eric is standing on one of the tables, not far from where we sit. He’s holding a microphone in one hand and is tapping against it with the other hand. After a few moments the whole room went silent and Eric looks around one last time, then starts speaking.

“We’re not big on speeches here in Dauntless.” Eric’s booming voice sounds through the speakers. “I am going to keep this short. This year we have a new group of initiates who chose Dauntless, and we will choose fourteen of them to become new members of Dauntless. These initiates are our future and we are sure they will fill Dauntless with pride. We offer our congratulations to them.” Loud clapping and cheering fills the room. “In Dauntless we believe in bravery, in standing up for one another and we believe in taking action. We believe in fighting the bad things in this world and in forging the world into something better and good. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you to Dauntless.” There is more cheering and people stamping with their feet on the floor. “Tomorrow, as their first act as new members, they will choose their new professions, in the order of how they are ranked – which, of course, is what you’ve been all waiting for. The rankings are determined by combining the scores of all three stages and will appear behind me.”

As soon as he finishes, the names of us appear on the wall behind him. Next to each number appears the name and a picture that person.

I scan the rankings quickly and let out a loud shriek when I discover that I am ranked  third - after Sky and Mia. Alec is ranked fourth and Nick is fifth. Jay is ranked eight. I turn towards Sky and we fall into each other’s arms.

“We made it!” She screams. “We fucking made it! I told you that we would!”

“I know!” I laugh. “Congrats for ranking first!”

“Congrats on becoming Dauntless’ new ambassador!”

My head leans on Sky’s shoulder and I smile contently. Only one eyes is covered with Sky’s blue hair, but with the other one I glance over to Eric. He’s watching me and catches my gaze. Before I know what I do, I mouth ‘Thank you’ at him, hoping that he’ll understand it. It seems that he does, because he smirks and nods his head in my direction. His lips move and form something that I almost sure means ‘Take a nap’. _Bastard_ , I think, but I just roll my eyes at him.

It’s not until we let go of each other to give the others our congratulations that I notice that Nick and Zora stand in a close embrace and I figure out the reason as soon as I look at the rankings again. Zora is ranked sixteenth. She, as well as a Dauntless girl names Val and to my surprise Jane, didn’t make the final cut. Zora’s out.

She’s factionless now. All the cheering around me is suddenly blended out.

“Shit.” I whisper. Sky next to me only nods. We don’t know what else to say. Even Nick looks teary eyed at us.

“Okay, group hug, everyone!” Jay says.

That’s what we do. We all walk over to Nick and Zo and hug them.

Eventually, Zora frees herself from our embrace and looks at us with red, puffy eyes.

“I’ll miss you guys.” She says. “It was great knowing you.”

I don’t know what to reply. I feel so sorry for her, even though I was never that close with her, and I feel sorry for Nick who only just a few days ago got together with her. It’s heart breaking.

Suddenly, Max appears in our round and looks at Zora. “I am sorry, you have to pack your things now.”

Zora looks at him for a moment before she nods.

“Follow me.” Max says and starts to leave.

Zora looks at us all for a moment and smiles weakly. “Bye then…”

“Til next time.” Alec says. We nod. She turns around and follows Zora. Nick is about to follow her as well, when Sky holds him back.

“Don’t you dare do anything stupid!” She says threatening.

Nick stares at her for a moment. “Fine.” He mutters and then he quickly makes his way through the crowd and goes after Zora and Max.

 

We stand in a small circle in silence for a few moments where no one knows what to do or say. We all made it into Dauntless, we’re full members now, all but one. We should celebrate, I think, but the mood is dampened.

“Sky!” I high voice shouts and suddenly Sky is caught in a very big embrace by her sister, Chelsea. “That’s my baby sister! Ranking first of all initiates!”

Sky breaks into a grin. “Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Chels.” She says and hugs her sister back. “Now let go of me. You’re drunk!”

“I knooooow! Isn’t it great!” Chelsea squeals. “Come on, all of you!” She grins at us. “It’s time to celebrate and get wasted!”

She takes Sky’s hand and drags her away and Sky is just able to take my hand and drag me with her. I see how Jay and Alec shrug and follow us.

 

We end up dancing and drinking with Chelsea and Miles, as well as - to my disliking – Ace and a few others that I don’t know their names of. We eat cake and drink fizzy and sweet cocktails and with the help of a bit of alcohol and the constant reminder that I am ranked the third best initiate of all this year I manage to push away any thoughts about Zora for the rest of the celebration.

At one point, not long after we were dragged away, Max and Eric come to us and both of them shake our hands and offer each of us congratulations. It could of course be my imagination, but I think my hand shake with Eric lasted maybe a second or two longer than his handshake with my friends.

He also doesn’t congratulate me. Instead he says mockingly, “See, I told you.” He smirks.

“Oh, shut it, Eric.”

His expression shifts into a more serious one and it looks like he wants to say something else but at that moment, Max points to me and Sky. “We will have to talk to you two about your options for professions in leadership tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” Sky says and I nod along. I bite my lips so that I don’t start squealing in excitement.

Max nods contently and turns around. “Eric?” He gestured to him to follow him.

As soon as they are gone I stare at Sky with wide eyes. She stares back, and then we both start screaming and laughing in joy and, once again, fall into each other’s arms. Needless to say, we had fun for the rest of the night.

 

It hits me at precisely 4.34 am. I went through all my fears today, _I had to let myself get killed_ , and Eric watched all my fears, including the numerous times he appeared in them, and one of my friends is now factionless and probably looking for a place to sleep in this cold night.

I don’t sleep anymore that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Cas' last fear is death/dying and what she decides to do in that fear sim could be seen as suicide. If you want to skip it, stop reading after the fear with Tommy and start again, when she wakes up again (there is a slightly bigger break between the paragraphs). The scene with that last fear is a bit longer than the description of the previous fears.
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> This chapter is really one of my favourites! I realize that we never really got any discription in the books what the fear sims and the fear landscapes would be like for a non-divergent person, so this is my take on it.  
> I've been dropping some hints about both Jane and Zora possibly not making it through initiation, maybe you caught them ':)
> 
> Anyway, Cas finally made it through, she is proud of herself and so is Eric and now it remains to be seen how they both handle the fact that Eric now knows about all of her fears *mysterious music*
> 
> and - unbeta'ed, english isn't my native language, sorry for any mistakes I missed! Until next time :)  
> (pls forgive me, it's very late once again. I shouldn't be updating when it's that late tbh)
> 
> I'm on tumblr: [teaboyofficeboy](http://teaboyofficeboy.tumblr.com/)


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